History's Worst Recalls
Published on April 12, 2014 in Galleries by Frédérick Boucher-Gaulin
While GM's most recent recall about the ignition switch on the Cobalt, Solstice and various other cars caused widespread panic, it is important to keep in mind that they were not the first to recall cars... Nor was it the worst!
In 2004, GM recalls 3.6 million Chevrolet Silverado, GMC Sierra, Cadillac Escalade EXT and Chevrolet Avalanche over a tailgate cable that would rot and break.
A bolt holding the wipers on the Volkswagen Beetles built between 1949 and 1969 was flawed, forcing VW to recall 3.7 million cars in 1972.
On a lot of 90's Honda products, like the Civic, the Accord and the Prelude, but also the Acura Integra, Legend and even the lustworthy NSX, the belt buckle could fail, This prompted a 3.7 million vehicle recall from the Japanese manufacturer.
In the '70, security laws were a little less strict. Still, when something as dangerous as a seat belt ripping itself off from its mounts happened, you had to recall. Ford learned that lesson the hard way, being forced to repair 4.1 million Ford, Lincoln and Mercury products.
Recently, amid the confusion caused by the GM controversy, Toyota quietly recalled 6.7 million cars (Corolla, Matrix, Highlander, RAV4 et Yaris among others.) concerning a spiral cable in the steering which could cause the airbags to not deploy.
Speaking of Toyota, do you remember the ''unintended acceleration'' problem they faced a couple years back? 7.4 million cars had to be recalled, for problems ranging from ''improperly placed floormats'' to ''defective accelerator pedal''.
Ford is no stranger to massive recalls. in 1996, a lot of their car spontaneously went up in flames. After analysis, it was determined that the ignition factor (pun intended) was... The ignition switch, which would create an electrical short. Over 7.9 million of those switches had to be changed.
And while we are on the subject of Fords setting themselves on fire, we can't forget the worst recall in history! In 2008, it was proven that a relay in the cruise control could smoke, burn and even set the car ablaze! 9.6 million cars are part of this recall...
…Which was expanded in 2009 to another 4.5 million, bringing the total to 14.1 million units. Yikes!