The C.A.R.S. Foundation

 
When car dealers want to make a killing by selling you a dangerously defective car at top dollar, can you trust them to tell you the truth about how hazardous it is?

Nope. Car dealers know that if you are aware how serious the safety recall defects are, chances are very good you won't buy that car, and that would cut into their profits.

So if a car dealer tells you anything at all about the safety recall defects, they usually try to trick you into thinking they're nothing to worry about. Just something minor. But don't fall for it. In reality, safety recall defects are often deadly. They injure and kill car buyers and their children, other family members, and other victims at an alarming rate.

But that doesn't stop car dealers from seeking to profit from selling the hazardous cars without bothering to get the free safety recall repairs done first.
   
Let's look at the facts.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, ALL safety recall defects are serious.
   
Tragically, unrepaired safety recall defects continue to cause thousands of horrific, debilitating injuries and kill people.

Typical safety recall defects include:

• catching on fire - some people have burned to death
• loss of steering, including steering wheels that literally come off in the driver's hands
• faulty brakes that can cause a crash
• sticking accelerator pedals that cause cars to speed out of control
• seat belts that fail to work when they're needed in a crash
• child safety seat latches that come undone in a crash
• Takata airbags that explode with excessive force and propel metal shrapnel into drivers' and passengers' face, neck and torso, often causing blindness or bleeding to death

 
   
   

---

 

What did a federal judge tell CarMax's lawyer, after learning about how CarMax operates?
See for yourself.
   
"I told both my children: Don't you buy a 'certified' car from CarMax."
 

---

 

 
When LaQuata Williams went shopping for a minivan at a car dealership in Kansas, she explained that she has three children and she needed a vehicle that was safe and reliable. The dealer told her that a 2002 Ford Windstar was just what she was looking for. What he didn't tell her almost cost her and her boyfriend their lives.

Soon after she bought the minivan, she heard a popping noise in the rear. She took it back to the dealer repeatedly for repairs to fix the noise. But the dealer insisted that the Windstar was perfectly safe.

About three months after she bought the minivan, she was driving on the freeway with her boyfriend, going about 65 mph, when the axle broke. Suddenly she lost steering and the Windstar spun out and flipped over, nearly killing LaQuata and her boyfriend. Fortunately, her children weren't in the car, and both LaQuata and her boyfriend were wearing their seat belts. "It's a miracle we weren't severely injured or killed," she said.
   
The next day, LaQuata learned that Ford Windstars had been recalled due to breaking axles. She obtained the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) for her Windstar and contacted Ford.

The manufacturer said that there were two safety recalls pending -- including for the axle breaking. Carfax also noted the pending safety recalls in its report on her Windstar.

Ms. Williams hired Kansas City attorney Bryce Bell to represent her in litigation against the dealership that sold her the hazardous Windstar, and failed to fix get the recall repairs done. They eventually settled the matter. She also testified for passage of legislation in California to help protect others from being victimized by car dealers who neglect to fix recalled cars with potentially deadly safety recall defects.
 

"On October 2016, Corey Jackson was at a used car lot in South Chicago Heights, signing the papers to buy a 2008 Buick LaCrosse.

He was excited about the leather interior, sunroof and heated seats — but he didn't know that the used car was the subject of a safety recall because of problems with an ignition switch defect already implicated in 124 deaths nationwide.

The used car salesperson didn't mention the recall, Jackson says.

And because the Markham man bought the car used, he never got a notice from the manufacturer, General Motors.

Seven months later, on May 16, 2017, Jackson was driving home from work at WeatherTech, the car floor liner manufacturer, when he tried to pass a car on Bluff Road in Lockport Township. He sped up but quickly abandoned the attempt because another car was coming toward him from the opposite direction on the two-lane road. Suddenly, his car veered off the road and onto the grass, crashing into a tree.

The ignition switch had failed, Jackson's attorneys say, suddenly shutting off the engine and cutting power to the steering wheel, brakes and airbags.

Jackson was knocked unconscious in the crash. He was wearing a seat belt. But, with no inflated airbag, he slammed into the steering wheel. He lost several teeth and broke his jaw. The 37-year-old still walks with a limp from injuries to his hip and a knee and a broken ankle.

Now, Jackson is suing GM and the dealer that sold him the car, FJH Cars Inc. of South Chicago Heights, blaming them for putting him in harm's way with a defective car that was under recall the day he bought it.

"Nothing was said, nothing about a recall," Jackson says. "You feel deceived."
  Some consumers have fared better in state courts, where they can sue under state laws that more broadly address the sale of defective products.

Corey Jackson, who couldn't work after his accident yet still owed payments on the totaled Buick, says he wishes his recalled car had never been put out for sale.

"It cost me my lifestyle, my job — damn near my life," Jackson says. "Just value the person and not just the sale."

Read More: Chicago Sun-Times: Used car dealers are selling vehicles despite open recalls
 

 
"Lisa Shelton of Hidden Valley Lake, Calif., fell in love with the black 2005 Infiniti FX35 on a used-car lot in June 2019. She purchased it for about $7,000, but she had no idea the SUV was one of more than 400,000 vehicles recalled by Nissan in May 2016. The problem: A passenger-side Takata airbag that could eject metal fragments during an accident, injuring her, her family, or others. And she didn't know that the potentially deadly airbag - never replaced by previous owners - remained installed in her car.

The dealer told her the vehicle had been inspected by its repair shop, showing her a clean car history report from the federal government's National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS) - which doesn't include open-recall information in its reports.

'I'm sick to my stomach,' said Shelton, who unknowingly put her daughters, husband, and self at risk while driving the car. She even taught her 17-year-old to drive in the Infiniti. 'I was completely blown away. I had no clue that was something I had to worry about.'

Colin Welsh, Shelton's attorney, said he doesn't know whether the dealer was aware of the outstanding recall, but that it had a responsibility to check before selling it. 'I think it's irresponsible and negligent for any dealer to sell a vehicle with an open recall.'

Think this is an unusual case? It's not.

Between 2010 and 2018, automakers in the U.S. recalled 238 million cars and light trucks due to unsafe defects. Manufacturers issue recalls for dangerous problems: Brakes that can fail, engines that can catch fire, airbags that injure or kill, doors that might fling open unexpectedly.

But according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), about one-fourth of recalled rides go unrepaired. Many end up on used-car lots where they're often resold by dealers that haven't addressed the recalls or informed buyers about them....

In September 2020, Carfax estimated that 57 million vehicles—or one in five—have at least one outstanding recall.

Many of these autos eventually make their way into the used-car market. Carfax estimates that at least one in six used vehicles for sale in the U.S. have one or more unresolved recalls. Our researchers selected 10 vehicle models manufactured between 2010 and 2019 with previous recalls...We found 227 of the 600 automobiles—nearly 40 percent of them—had at least one problem subject to a recall that hadn't yet been addressed, according to the NHTSA's database.

The most egregious example was a 2011 Hyundai Sonata we found advertised on Edmunds.com by a used-car dealer in St. Paul, Minn. It had five unresolved recalls to address problems that could affect the proper operation of the vehicle's airbags, seatbelts, and brake lights; could allow the car to roll away with the transmission in "park"; and cause engine failure while the car is moving.

That hardly seems like a car you'd want to own—or have on the road at all.


Read more: Checkbook Magazine: On the Road Again, Despite Dangerous Defects. Used cars often sold with dangerous defects.
 

 
CarMax, AutoNation, and other auto dealerships routinely sell dangerously defective recalled cars without bothering to get the deadly Takata airbags replaced before foisting them off on used car buyers and their families.

Sometimes, it's not the vehicle owners who are injured or killed, but their passengers, relatives, or friends.
   
According to news reports, police say 35-year old Rekeyon Barnette died in a car crash on Jan. 9. A defective recalled Takata airbag in the 2002 Honda Accord he was driving deployed in the steering wheel, propelling metal shrapnel that "caused severe trauma to [his] lower face that eventually led to his death."

Honda told reporters that Mr. Barnette was not the registered owner of the car.
   
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "As of January 2021, approximately 67 million inflators are under recall for nineteen affected vehicle manufacturers, of which approximately 50 million have been repaired or are otherwise accounted for.... [But] Seventeen million inflators have yet to be repaired or otherwise accounted for.

Unrepaired air bags can explode when deployed, causing serious injury or even death. Eighteen people in the United States have been killed by defective Takata air bags, and reports suggest that more than 400 have been injured."

Watch news report -- Briana Harper, reporting. WCNC Charlotte, SC: "Lancaster man dies in crash involving recalled Takata airbag"
 

 
Indiana father Anthony Burgess' three-year-old daughter is alive today because of her father's bravery, rescuing her from an icy retention pond after a defective recalled Pontiac G-6 with a faulty transmission slid into the icy waters, with her inside. But tragically, after handing his daughter to a bystander who grabbed her, he slipped below the water and drowned.
   
The Pontiac was one of more than 1.1 million vehicles General Motors recalled in 2014 because of a defect in the transmission that could cause them to roll away, even if the gear was set in "park."

Her mother was unaware the Pontiac had an unrepaired safety recall. The recall was issued several years before she bought the car, and she didn't receive any notice.

GM told news reporters that owners of older vehicles are less likely to respond to safety recalls.

People who buy used vehicles or who move frequently often do not receive notice about safety recalls because manufacturers rely on vehicle registrations for addresses, and those records are often incomplete or out of date.

There's also a huge safety gap between newer vehicles and used cars that have changed ownership. The main causes of this dangerous gap? Car dealers fail to repair recalled used cars, selling them without getting the free repairs done first. Plus subsequent vehicle owners may never get the safety recall notices.

According to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, as reported in the IndyStar, "Recalls are completed on about 83 percent of newer vehicles. That drops to 44 percent for vehicles five to 10 years old and 29 percent for cars more than 10 years old."

Watch news report: CBS This Morning: Father drowns saving daughter from recalled Pontiac G6
 

 
Since 2015, auto manufacturers have recalled more than 26.5 million vehicles due to defects that can cause them to burst into flames. Some manufacturers recommend that the owners park the cars outside, where they may be less likely to burn down homes. But beware: if you buy an unrepaired, recalled firebomb car from a car dealer like CarMax, and it catches on fire and burns down your home, or destroys a whole town, they will try to pin the blame on you. This is a lesson that Californian Anthony Santos found out the hard way, after a Ford F-150 pickup he purchased from CarMax caught on fire in his driveway and caused over $200,000 in damage to the pickup, his garage, and his home. Fortunately, he and his children were able to escape the flames.
   
Before he bought the pickup from CarMax, Ford had issued a safety recall because the truck had a dangerous defect that made it prone to catching on fire without any warning. CarMax failed to get the FREE safety recall repair done before selling the pickup to Mr. Santos. Despite neglecting to get the repairs done, CarMax advertised that the pickup had passed CarMax's "125 point inspection." This of course would lead car buyers to believe that it must at least be safe, and free from known, hazardous safety recall defects.
   
After the truck caught on fire, CarMax tried to pin the blame on Mr. Santos for not finding out about the recall, taking his truck to a Ford dealership, and getting the safety recall repair done himself. Mr. Santos sued CarMax, and eventually they won, on a technicality.

Bottom line: Buying cars from CarMax is risky, especially if you live where there's a serious risk of wildfires.

Learn more: NBC Bay Area: Risks of Buying a Used Car and What the Dealership Isn't Telling You