California Lemon Law Lawyer Blog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwiv23dLhMY

2006 Jeep Wrangler owners are reporting they experience a violent shaking at certain speeds.
Check out the You Tube video.

One owner, Heidi Schwartz of Annapolis, MD, said her 2006 Wrangler shakes between 50 and 60 miles per hour causing a near loss of control.

The federal safety agency website, safercar.gov has 436 complaints about 2006 Jeep Wranglers.

Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, has been pushing the safety agency, NHTSA, to take action since it is a safety issue.

Rosemary Shahan, president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety called NHTSA's lack of action "mind-boggling." She plans to contact NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation to ask for action. "NHTSA is the pressure point," Shahan said. "I don't see how you can say with a straight face that this is not a safety defect.

When hit by a vehicle from behind, the 1993 through 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokees are prone to catching on fire. The main problem is that that gas tank is located in the "crush zone" behind the rear axle and somewhat below the bumper. The safer location is in front of the rear axle. A second problem is that the fuel filler pipe is positioned so it may rip away in a rear impact allowing fuel to escape.

Clarence Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety says that rear-impact tests of these models showed significant leaks of gasoline posing a danger to the Jeeps' passengers as well as occupants of the striking vehicle.

Details on the Grand Chrokees' fire danger are available in a report by Christopher Jensen in today's New York Times.

As old as these vehicles are, there are still about 2.2 million on the roads.

On April 28 the California Assembly approved the nation's first law to force rental car companies to pull vehicles off the road after a safety recall. The bill was introduced after two sisters were killed when the steering failed on a Chrysler PT Cruiser they had rented from Enterprise. The car hit a truck and caught fire.

Their mother, Carol Houck, of Ojai, testified in committee that the car had been rented at least three times after Enterprise received the recall notice. The Houck family filed a wrongful death lawsuit that Enterprise fought for five years. A jury last year awarded the family $15 million.

Rental car companies are lobbying against the bill for no good reason other than it might cost them some money. Rosemary Strahan of the Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety group sponsored the bill, AB 753.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Admnistration (NHTSA) has long refused to post the technical bulletins that auto manufacturers issue to their dealers. Some of the bulletins announce warranty extensions for certain repairs. Knowing a warranty extension would benefit affected car owners. With the information, they would know the manufacturer would pay for needed repairs.

Christopher Jensen of the NY Times reports the agency claims that copyright concerns prevent publication, but most manufacturers say they do not object to having their bulletins published. A Ford spokesman said Ford was afraid that if do-it-yourselfers obtain the bulletins, they would take it upon themselves to perform repairs for which they are not qualified thus ignoring the fact that the bulletins are available from publishers like Alldata.

Clarence Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety said that this was a case of the agency was more concerned about catering to industry rather than helping consumers.

In a news conference today, Ray Hood, head of the US Dept of Transportaton, announced that a federal study has concluded that software flaws did not cause Toyotas to suddenly accelerate. The investigation found no evidence for any causes beyond the widely reported sticking accelerator pedals and floor mat entrapment problems. Toyota has recalled over 11 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles worldwide to fix the pedals and possibility of mats riding up over the accelerators.

To reduce the incidents of unintended acceleration, the federal safety agency said in the future it may order manufacturers to build in brake override systems that allow the brake to stop the vehicle even if the accelerator is being pressed at the same time. Toyota is currently beginning to install such systems in its new vehicles.

In an interview reported in today's WSJ, David Strickland, the head of the federal safety agency, says that the agency's focus will be on new technology. The agency will look at crash-avoidance technology, such as Ford's experiments with a "talking vehicle" system that warns a driver a vehicle is closing in fast from the side at a blind intersection. The agency is also researching devices to detect an elevated lood alcohol level in the driver to reduce drunk driving.

Consumer auto safety advocates have long seen the agency as doing too little, too late. Perhaps the agency will now force some major advances in auto safety.;

Are women better drivers than men? This debate has been going on since cars were invented. AOL Auto weighs in with an interesting report.

Whenever a manufacturer initiates a recall, they always say it is "voluntary." However, there is no such thing as a voluntary recall at least when safety is involved. Writing in the NY Times, Christoper Jensen reports that automakers have no choice but to recall vehicles that have safety defects. Jensen quotes Allan Kam, a safety consultant in Bethesda, Md., who once worked at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, on this point. Mr Kam said it is like saying I voluntarily paid my income tax,”

The federal safety act requires car manufacturers to notify N.H.T.S.A. and consumers and conduct a recall when there is a safety defect.

“They really have no choice,” said Clarence Ditlow, the executive director of the Center for Auto Safety.

In recent years, advanced safety features often appeared first in luxury cars. But these features are now available in economy cars. For example, the Chevrolet Cruze, that starts at $17,000, offers 10 airbags, stability control and a host of other safety gear that not long ago would have been remarkable even for a Mercedes. In today's edition, the WSJ's Joseph White explain that if you went shopping for an affordable compact car in 1994, you would find the Chevy Cavalier with no airbags, no electronic stability control, and a price somewhere around $12,000 (about the same price as the Cruze adjusted for inflation).

The Hyundai Elantra, Honda Civic and Ford Fiesta have a half dozen or more airbags. Electronic stability control is common in lower price cars, including the Ford Focus and Toyota Corolla. High strength steel is used to dissipate crash forces.

Stability control, a computer-controlled brake system that prevents a car from lurching into a sideways skid, first appeared Mercedes-Benz and BMW cars. More cars have this feature available and the government mandated it for 2012 cars.

Two leading auto safety advocacy groups are asking the Federal Trade Commission to order Enterprise Rent-A-Car to start fixing vehicles with a safety recall before renting them to consumers.

What can happen when a rental car company fails to perform safety recalls can be tragic. Two sisters rented an Enterprise rental car that caught fire in the engine and then collided with a tractor-trailer. Enterprise admitted in a California court its failure to fix a Chrysler PT Cruiser was responsible for the deaths when the car crashed. A jury awarded $15 million in damages.

Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety of Sacramento and the Center for Auto Safety of Washington, DC filed the request this week. Carol Houck, the mother of the two women who died, joined in the petition. Ms. Houck said she wanted the F.T.C. “to order that any safety recall not be discretionary,” adding: “They have to be pulled from the lot and fixed. It is not rocket science.”

Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Alamo and National Car Rental are each part of Enterprise Holdings, that has more than a third of all airport business in the U.S.

It usually takes a crisis to get Congress to act on important problems. Toyota created a crisis by failing to disclose its vehicles have a tendency to suddenly accelerate.

Key congressional committees are working on new laws that would strengthen auto safety. Under the bills being considered, all new cars must have brake override mechanisms to stop the cars even when the accelerator is engaged and the cars must have black boxes to record data just before and after a crash.

The federal safety agency administrator is proposing that Congress give the agency the ability to order immediate recalls if consumers are in danger. Currently, a federally required recall is a lengthy and cumbersome process, meaning virtually all recalls are voluntary actions by the carmakers.

Concurrently, Sen Barbara Boxer has introduced a bill that would bar federal safety agency employees who go to work for auto manufacturers from lobbying the agency for at least three years. Late last year, Toyota employees, who recently worked for the agency, successfully lobbied the agency to narrow the scope of a recall.

The NY TImes does its usual fine job of covering these developments: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/business/07auto.html?pagewanted=1&hp

The typical new car has 20 million lines of code with as many as 2,000 bugs according to Dr Keith Armstrong, an electrical engineer. In a recent press conference hosted by ToyotaTruth.com, he and other experts opined that under certain conditions, one or more bugs may cause a car to suddenly accelerate. But finding the bug after the fact may be almost impossible.

One problem is that each car manufacturer considers its code proprietary ruling out collaborative efforts to improve the safety of the computerized controls on each manufacturer's code.

Continue reading "Hidden Software Bugs May Cause Sudden Acceleration" »

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told a Senate committee on Tuesday the Obama administration is considering a proposal to require that all U.S. vehicles be equipped with special brake technology that ensures a car will stop when both the gas pedal and brakes are activated. Experts say some cases of unintended acceleration may have resulted in accidents if a car's electronics favored the brakes over the accelerator.

Mr. Rockefeller, the Senate Commerce Committee chairman, suggested that some of Toyota's problems could have been prevented if its vehicles had been equipped with "smart pedal" technology. Toyota is moving to install the system in some current models and most new vehicles.

Toyota is looking worse by the week. A House congressional committee recently subpoenaed documents from Mr Dimitrios Biller, a former in-house Toyota lawyer, who alleges Toyota withheld key documents in personal injury lawsuits in spite of court orders to produce the documents.

Based on Toyota documents produced in response to the subpoena, Rep. Edolphus Towns (D. N.Y.) last week sent a letter to Toyota asking about Toyota's electronic "Books of Knowledge," in which Toyota engineers kept design and testing data. Rep. Towns states the books were not not turned over to the plaintiffs in the lawsuits.

Rep Towns said Toyota settled lawsuits paying millions of dollars when the plaintiff was close to getting to obtaining the "Books of Knowledge."

Let's say you are driving your car, OK a Toyota, and the car suddenly acclerates. Shutting off the engine or putting the transmission in neutral seems like a good idea. An AP article raises the question why drivers do not have the presence of mind to shut off the engine if the car accelerates on its own.

According to the article, experts say making these moves is almost impossible for most drivers to consider when they're in a panic, because frightened people often can't remember even simple steps to protect themselves.

"You're stamping on the brakes and your attention is going to be focused on where you're going and steering. There's no cognitive space left to think of alternatives," said Dr. Boadie Dunlop, a psychiatrist and director of the Mood and Anxiety Program at Emory University. "To do something that's not natural, such as turning off the engine, is just not going to come to mind."

Anothe problem is that some Toyota and Lexus vehicles have push-button ignitions that require drivers to hold the button down for three seconds to turn off the engine. Drivers would not necessarily know that is the case.

As every one knows, Toyota has recalled millions of cars and trucks because of a defective gas-pedal. According to Toyota's press releases, the company acted as soon as it learned a problem exists, but the truth is just the opposite. On February 8, 2010, the Wall Street Journal published an article tracing the history of Toyota's actions and inactions titled "Secretive Culture Led Toyota Astray. (subscription required).

Toyota owners reported they experienced sudden accleration for years. For years, Toyota conveniently blamed the problem on misplaced after-market floor mats. The gas-pedal design was put into use in the 2002 Camry sedan; it uses electronic sensors to send signals to the computer controlling the engine. Toyota adopted the system in the Lexus ES sedan later on. By early 2004, owners had complained to Toyota about sudden acceleration. In 2004, NHTSA, our safety agency, investigated 37 such complaints that involved 30 accidents. Toyota told the agency the floor mats pinned the gas pedal. NHTSA closed the investigation in July 2004.

Complaints continued in succeeding years. Toyota said there was no defect.

In March 2007, NHTSA opened a new investigation on sudden acceleraton in the Lexus ES350; Toyota argued that after-market floor mats were the problem. Owners were told to buy new floor mats, but the reports continued.

Then in December 2008 Toyota's European unit investigated cars in Ireland and England that failed to slow or surged. After months of testing, Toyota found the culprit: a plastic part in the pedal mechanism also widely used in the U.S. Toyota redesigned the pedals for new cars coming off the assembly line, but failed to initiate a recall in Europe or the U.S.

In August 2009, an off-duty CHP officer and his family died when his Lexus ES350 accelerated to more than 100 mph. An occupant made a 911 call when the car was acclerating. The accident was well publicized.

In September 2009, NHTSA told Toyota they needed to resolve the floor mat issue and that replacing the floor mats was not enough. NHTSA told Toyota to later the gas pedals to make sure they don't get caught on the mats. On October 5, 2010, Toyota recalled 3.8 million vehicles to fix the floor mats.

Incredibly, on November 3, 2010, Toyota put out a press release stating "no defect exists" in the recalled vehicles. NHTSA put out its own statement in response saying Toyota's statement was "inaccurate and misleading."

On December 15, 2010, NHTSA officials flew to Japan and told about 100 Toyota executives and engineers that Toyota was obligated to comply with U.S. defect-recall rules.

Less than a month later on Jan 19, 2010, Toyota officials told NHTSA's new chief that there was a flaw in the gas pedals. A few days later Toyota announced a 2.3 million vehicle recall, but it did not have sufficient parts available. NHTSA told Toyota it would have to stop selling cars until the parts were available. On January 26, 2010, shocked everyone by stopping sales of unrepaired vehicles on dealers' lots.

Side airbags, an important safety feature, were standard equipment on the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Chevrolet Impalas and on the 2007 and 2008 Chevrolet Cobalts. Even though the airbags were standard equipment, GM allowed fleet buyers to delete the side airbags to save $175 a car.l Enterprise Rent-A-Car bought thousands of these cars no side airbags to save $175 per car.

When it came time to sell these cars, Enterprise did not disclose to the ultimate buyers that there were no side airbags. Instead of an airbag, the place for it had a piece of corrugated plastic.

Enterprise sold some hundreds of these cars through its website, EnterpriseCarSales.com. After word got out that the cars had no side air bags, Enterprise offered to repurchase the cars for the blue book value plus $750. However, Enterprise has not made any offers to the consumers who bought the cars that ended up on Chevrolet dealers' lots that were sold as GM certified used cars.

The Kansas City Star reports that a man who bought one of these cars and was hit on the side of his car causing him severe injuries. His lawsuits against Enterprise alleges he would not now be paralyzed if an air bad had been present.

Owners can check the seventh position of their car's VIN to see if the car has side air bags. If the air bags are not present, the number will be a 5. If the air bags are present, the number will be a 7 or 8.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety sent the Honda Fit crashing into a Honda Accord, the Smart ForTwo into a Mercedes C-Class and a Toyota Yaris into a Toyota Camry -- each at 40 miles per hour. The results indicate what safety you may be trading for efficiency when your mode of transportation shrinks.

The Smart For Two had “extensive” damage into the area where the driver sits. The institute's findings indicate a human would have a high likelihood of sustaining head and leg injuries. The Yaris rated poor in the area of head and leg injuries as well. A driver of the Fit in a similar accident would have hit the steering wheel through the airbag in addition to sustaining leg injuries.

Continue reading "Smart, Yaris & Fit Fare Poorly in Crash Tests" »

President Obama has nominated safety advocate Charles A. Hurley to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Hurley has been the CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) for four years. Before that Hurley was with the National Safety Council and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Having a strong safety advocate at NHTSA is indeed good news. Congress has to approve the nomination.

NHTSA sets safety standards for cars sold in the United States and is also responsible for regulating national average fuel economy standards. Consumer Reports blog entry on Hurley states that Hurley favors much stronger roof strength standards to prevent vehicle roofs from collapsing on occupants in rollover accidents.

Safety advocates are concerned about defective Chinese auto parts such as tires susceptible to tread separation and child restraints that come apart in an impact. Other examples are tire valves that break and let air escape, glass that does not meet standards for tempered glass, and high-intensity discharged headlights that do not meet U.S. federal safety standards.

Clarence Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety said that so many Chinese parts are coming into the market that U.S. safety officials cannot keep track of them. Ditlow researched recalls ordered by National Highway Safety Administration finding that the agency had ordered recalls on a number of faulty Chinese products.

The importer/distributors are often undercapitalized and may not be familiar with U.S. safety regulations. For example, one recall involved kits to convert headlights to more powerful high-intensity lights that the importer was selling on eBay. The importer kept his inventory in a closet.

A related problem is that some importers may not have the resources to carry out a recall. An importer of Chinese made tires in New Jersey recently struggled to recall 255,000 tires.

Christopher Jensen reported on this story in the New York Times on 12/20/08.

Sixteen years ago, Congress enacted a statute requiring the federal government to
implement the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS), a single
database that would provide public access to vehicle-history information gathered from
states, insurance companies, and junk and salvage yards. Before purchasing a potentially
dangerous used car, a consumer using the database would be able to instantly check the
validity of the vehicle’s title, verify its mileage, and learn whether it had been stolen or
deemed a junk or salvage vehicle. Congress viewed the database as an important solution
to the problems of auto theft, auto fraud, and the dangers associated with unsafe and
unreliable vehicles, and set a deadline of January 31, 1997, for establishment of the system.

After a 16-year wait, in an emphatic victory for consumers, on September 22, 2008, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the Northern District of California ordered the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to make this information available to consumers by the end of January 2009.

Public Citizen, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, and Consumer Action brought the lawsuit against the DOJ saying that the agency’s unlawful delay in implementing the database was putting consumers at risk.

In a press release, Public Citizen said that when Congress passed a law in 1992 calling for the database, no one expected it to take this long to deliver such critical information to consumers. During that time, countless people have unwittingly purchased rebuilt or stolen vehicles.

An ABC news report reveals that aged tires--some as old as 12 years--are being sold as new at leading retailersl After about 6 years of sitting on the shelf, tires dry out and lose their elasticity. The tread will peel off these tires when put in use causing the car to swerve out of control and crash. These tire failures are killing people yet the Rubber Manufacturers' Association and their member tire manufacturers oppose a ban on the sale of tires more than 6 years old, which auto makers and others are recommending. The federal safety agency, NHTSA just this month issued a vague general guideline to "err on the side of caution if you suspect your tires are over six years old."

The tire's date of manufacture is stated on the tire, but in a code consumers cannot readily decipher. The 3 or 4 digit code, which is at the end of a long string of characters,represents the week of the year it was manufactured and the year. For example, 414, means the tire was manufactured the 41st week of 2004. 4202 means the tire was manufactured the 42d week of 2002. Until recently, the code was on the inside of the tire where no one can see it when the tire is on the car!

ABC investigators, some from Channel 7 in San Francisco, shopped tire retailers such as Sears and found tires 4 years, 6 years, and even older available for sale. What is needed is a ban on the sale of tires old tires.

The Smart ForTwo car is now being sold in by Mercedes-Benz dealers. The tiny car has met with mixed reviews. After the driver's door opened during a side-impact test, the U.S. federal safety agency opened an investigation. The investigation followed a New York Times blog post that includes a video of a Smart car hitting a barrier at 70 mph. The car remained intact, but a door popped open (www.wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/smart-crash test/).

Separately, in early April 2008, an Automotive News reviewer said the Smart 1.0 liter, 70 hp three-cylinder engine had poor acceleration, the five-speed automated manual transmission makes the car rock back and forth as the driver shifts gears, and on the highway the driver must constantly tug the steering wheel left or right to keep going straight.On the other hand, they are exceedingly easy to park!

The National Highway Safety Administration ("NHTSA") is the agency that is supposed to regulate auto manufacturers to improve highway safety. For many years, however, the agency has done little or nothing to ensure highway safety; its actions are more in tune with protecting the auto industry than the public. For example, some years ago, the agency failured to warn consumers that Firestone tires on 1991 to 2001 Ford Explorers were prone to blow out and cause roll-over accidents.

Reacting to that failure, in 2000, Congress enacted a law to address the agency's failure to spot safety-related defects in cars, trucks, and tires. The law, known as the Transportation, Recall Enchancement, Accountability, and Documentation Act ("TREAD") directed the NHTSA to report all consumer complaints, warranty payments, and field reports in the event of an injury or death involving a vehicle or tire defect.

However, for years NHTSA did nothing and then made things worse when it enacted regulations to gut the new law. The regulations allow the auto manufacturers to make the data confidential and unavailable to the public. No good reason exists except to protect the auto industry.

The agency has taken other steps to shut out the public and safety advocates from obtaining information on auto safety. The agency formerly had a public library with a great deal of information essential for evaluating the agency's activities. However, in 2006, the agency shut down the library for all practical purposes.

Continuing with its trend to secrecy, NHTSA will not allow journalists to interview the agency's safety experts, which is contrary to the practice going back 20 years. Chris Jensen of the NY Times covered this topic in the NY Times auto blog.