Look at your six closest neighbors: If all of you have a car, there's a good chance one of you is driving behind a dangerously faulty Takata air bag. Nearly 34 million cars and trucks (out of the about 250 million on American roads) were just called defective amid the biggest consumer recall in U.S. history.
The air bags hide a nasty flaw that has been linked to six deaths and more than 100 injuries. A chemical inside the bag can burn too hot, causing it to burst and blast out metal shards.
The defect is made worse in humid climates with lots of moisture in the air. As you might have noticed, summer is coming, so the problem's not exactly going to go away on its own.
In these two forensic tests, shrapnel flies out of a Takata air bag when crash conditions are simulated in a test environment. The tests, conducted in December 2014, were commissioned by plaintiff's attorney Kevin Dean, whose firm, Motley Rice LLC, is representing several plaintiffs involved in Takata air bag litigation.The air bags pose a huge danger, but for the vast majority of drivers, the recall process may be marked by much more commonplace headaches. It's a confusing process, after all: Is your car at risk? If so, what do you do? And when can you expect repairs?
We put together a quick how-to guide to help you know what to expect just in case you're one of those drivers.
The first step
First, get your vehicle's identification number, or VIN. It's a 17-digit code you can find on the driver's side of your dashboard, by looking in from the outside of the windshield.
Type that unique code into www.safercar.gov/vin. That's the Department of Transportation's database for cars that have been recalled but not repaired over the last 15 years. (Many automakers run their own, too: www.safercar.gov/Vehicle+Owners/vin-lookup-sites.)
If your car has been recalled, contact your local dealership to schedule your replacement appointment. It's free: The fix is on the company's dime. You should also ask your dealer or carmaker for a free "loaner" car while the car's in the shop.
Easy so far, right?
Here's where it gets tricky
It's going to take a few days, maybe even a few weeks, for carmakers to say exactly which cars and trucks need to be included in the Takata recall. You should keep checking on that VIN lookup over time just in case your vehicle gets added later on.
We have some idea which car companies are touched by the recall: Cars from BMW, Dodge, Honda, Nissan, Toyota and a few others, generally made between 2000 and 2008, have already been recalled. But that list only includes half of the recalled vehicles. In essence, everyone should be checking.
Car owners (as decided by your registration) are also sent first-class letters telling them of the recall. But you'd be surprised how many throw them out, thinking they're a piece of spam or not important. About 30 percent of the drivers notified in a traditional recall don't respond at all. (Don't be one of them.)
The waiting game
Takata is doing a "rolling recall," sending notices to the drivers they think are in the most urgent trouble spots: Humid areas with high moisture, which make the rupture problem worse. (Southerners, Gulf Coasters: This means you.)
If you got a notice already, you should call your dealer as soon as possible. "The sooner you contact your dealer, the sooner you'll get on the list for repairs," said Jack Gillis, a consumer advocate with the Consumer Federation of America.
But there's no guarantee the dealer will be ready to fix your car then and there. In fact, it could take years for carmakers to get all the parts they need. Some carmakers are signing deals with other suppliers besides Takata for replacement parts.
That means you may have to wait. Federal regulators say, yes, that means you may still be driving a defective car for months. But no, they caution, don't disable or tamper with the air bag. Those things still save about 2,400 lives a year, federal safety data show.
"There is a frustration factor. ... If parts are not immediately available, people will say, 'If it were that serious, they'd tell me to park it,'" Clarence Ditlow, an executive director for the Center for Auto Safety, said last year. "Once you miss the initial opportunity, you're going to lose people."
Recall fatigue
It's easy to see why many drivers never hear about recalls or ignore them outright. More than 50 million cars and trucks were recalled across the country last year: That's more than three times as many vehicles were even sold nationwide the year before. Those recalls were spread out over what amounted to about two recall campaigns a day.
The notices carmakers send out have been criticized for softening the dangers. Then, of course, come the horror stories of driving scares and dealership frustrations, which can prompt many drivers not to bother.
John Kauffman Jr., a Maryland driver whose 2011 Chrysler 300 began filling up with smoke last year while on the highway, learned that the car had been recalled due to faulty alternators. His local dealership told him to tow it in, but after replacing the part, technicians said the recall wasn't official yet and tried to charge him $1,041 for the repair. (The company later said it would reimburse owners who paid for repairs.)
These things are concerning not just because they make the driver less safe. They also make it less safe for buyers down the road, who may buy the car later off Craigslist or a used-car lot. Carfax said about 3.5 million cars and trucks were listed for sale in 2013, even though they'd been recalled.
That makes it harder for automakers to find the new drivers and alert them to problems. (Some carmakers, like Honda, pay for investigative teams to track down hard-to-reach drivers.)
"There's automotive recall fatigue," Mike Rozembajgier, a vice president of recall consultant firm Stericycle, said last year. "People begin to think, 'I already checked,' or 'That's not my car,' or 'That's not that serious.' But they're all serious. They all have safety implications."
The other problem
Even after months of investigations from government, industry and independent researchers, no one knows exactly what to blame for the defect. Takata has pointed to separate flaws in different types of vehicles, and regulators generally have an idea of what makes the problem worse, but we're all still confused at what exactly is the root cause.
That means all those replacement parts may, yes, have the same problem. A very disconcerting end to this whole process, I know. But that still shouldn't prevent you from following through.
Federal officials launched a Web site, www.SaferCar.gov/RecallsSpotlight, that they say will keep posting updates. You can also sign up for email alerts for new recalls, based on your car's make and model: http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/subscriptions/.
