Recall Information
The NHTSA offers a great database of searchable information on all kinds of items recalled in the US market. While not directly applicable to other markets, chances are if there’s a problem with the product in one market, it’ll have the same problem elsewhere.
The information you’ll see after performing the search on the NHSTA site will look like this:
It’s a pretty simple system, but the final step does require you have some knowledge about the system you think might be defective. In the example above, I had to look for the “Exterior Lights” section in the drop down menu. It was straight forward, just be careful to read the list during this last step to help find what you need faster.
For Canadians, the government offers a similar service, but its broken into sections based on market segments. The Canadian automotive recall data is straight forward and searchable alphabetically.
The list of makes is very comprehensive, and after selecting yours form the list, you type in the model, select the year form the drop down and hit “Submit”. The results show a list of related recalls for the make/model/year, and you simply click a recall number to see the data, which looks like this:
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| Recall Details | |||||||||||||||
| On certain vehicles, the brake lamp switch may malfunction. If this happens, the brake lamps could become inoperative; or could come on and stay on, even though the vehicle is parked. Correction: Dealers will replace the brake lamp switch with a newly revised version. This action includes vehicles previously affected by Transport Canada recall 03-184 and 04-075. The switch installed during this prior repair may not function properly. Note: parts available December 2006. | |||||||||||||||