With the sheer number of vehicles being recalled this year alone, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration aims to make it easier for owners to check if their car or motorcycle should be brought in for repairs with the help of SaferCar.gov.
SaferCar.gov is essentially a website that owners can use to check if their car or motorcycle has been recalled. In the past, the same functionality has been offered by the NHTSA site but it used a car's model, make and year as parameters, yielding search results that often included more than the actual number of vehicles being recalled.
The new site changes all that by requiring just the 17-digit vehicle identification number vehicles are given. Owners can find their VIN on the driver's door post close to the hatch or the dashboard near the windshield. According to Jim Schulte, NHTSA director of digital strategies, SaferCar.gov will be able to bring up results for recalls scheduled up to 15 years in the past. Open recalls will be in red text while vehicles that have been repaired or have not been recalled will not appear in search results.
Out of all cars recalled, only around 75 percent are brought in by owners for the necessary repairs. The NHTSA hopes that SaferCar.gov will boost that number, adding that an informed consumer is one of the best allies the agency has in ensuring that recalled vehicles are repaired.
More than 40 million vehicles have already been recalled so far this year in the U.S., around 29 million of which is from General Motors. This beat the annual record set in 2004 for recalls which is 30.8 million. For the first six months of the year, recalled vehicles have already totaled 37.5 million.
Aside from SaferCar.gov, the NHTSA is also requiring car and motorcycle manufacturers to make the recall search feature available on their websites starting Wednesday, mandating as well that their recall database be updated at least once a week. It is also working with the National Automobile Dealers Association to create a VIN search tool for dealerships. NADA chairman Forrest McConnell said this will help dealerships nationwide in identifying whether or not a used car or motorcycle has been recalled and if the necessary repairs have been made before purchasing or accepting a trade.
Manufacturers notify all owners if their vehicle is being recalled but sometimes the process can be difficult since a lot of people move around. SaferCar.gov should supplement the effort manufacturers are putting into informing their customers of recalls.
