Transport Canada issued a warning about open recalls on the occasion of Vehicle Safety Recalls Week. The vehicle safety regulator estimates that more than one in five vehicles on Canadian roads has an unresolved safety recall. That amounts to approximately 6.6 million vehicles with uncorrected safety defects (!) Some defects are minor, like a missing warning label, but many are potentially serious involving the risk of fire from an electrical short circuit, a mechanical failure that could lead to a loss of control, or air bags that could deploy inadvertently, or not at all.
In a vehicle’s early years in service, recall completion rates are high. The automaker’s recall notices are mailed to the correct address, and car owners are more motivated to look after vehicles they have acquired recently. Changing addresses means that you could miss future safety recall notices. A vehicle owner will change the address on their driver’s licence and insurance policy, but rarely thinks of contacting the automaker. And updating the record at your dealership’s service department may not automatically update the automaker’s record.
People are surprised to learn that a check for open recalls is very rarely undertaken when a used vehicle is prepared for sale. Auto dealers avoid the entire topic of open safety recalls, because fixing them requires a trip across town to the service department of a new car dealership that has the potential to tie up their vehicle for days, sometimes weeks, while waiting for an appointment. Some used car dealer associations have lobbied against requiring open recalls to be corrected because they believe it’s too heavy an administrative burden for dealers. Years ago, the APA discovered that even franchised dealers will sometimes not correct open recalls for used vehicles on their car lot that belong to the brand they sell!
What you can do today
1. Transport Canada has a comprehensive database that’s easy to use and includes all the safety recalls applicable to Canadian-market vehicles including motorcycles, snowmobiles, trailers and child restraints. If you bought your vehicle used, this is an excellent place to start. Here’s the link for the complete list of safety recalls. Note that emissions recalls and automaker warranty extensions to correct common non-safety repair problems are not included in this database.
2. Consult your automaker’s website for a real-time lookup. You’ll need the 17-character Vehicle Identification Number for your vehicle to do this. You can find the number inside the driver’s door opening, or on your vehicle registration. It’s also required to be visible from outside the vehicle; the V.I.N. is located at the top of the dashboard on the driver’s side, visible through the bottom edge of the windshield. If there is an open recall for your vehicle, book an appointment with the service department of a dealership for your make to obtain the recall repair. Here is Transport Canada’s list of automaker links for lookups.
3. If your vehicle has changed addresses since it was new, or if your lookup reveals that there are indeed open recalls for which you did not receive a notice, contact the automaker to have their address record for your vehicle updated.
The way forward
It’s incredible that some provincial vehicle registration authorities are able to hold up your renewal to collect unpaid parking tickets, yet so little attention is paid to correcting safety recalls during a registration renewal or when used vehicles change hands.
The auto dealer associations have some merit when they oppose an outright ban on the resale of used cars with open safety recalls. Carmakers like Stellantis (Jeep, Ram), Volkswagen and Nissan can take months (sometimes more than a year!) to supply the parts needed to implement a safety recall. A total ban on selling vehicles with open safety recalls would make some vehicles impossible to sell for months at a time. However, provincial dealer regulators should require the selling dealer to undertake a recall lookup and provide full disclosure to the vehicle buyer. The buyer should also be advised to contact the vehicle manufacturer to upgrade their vehicle records.
Canadian Vehicle Recall Statistics over the Years
