Category: Regulation

The Fallout from Fire Pots Continues, Will Regulations Follow?

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On July 4, three people were severely injured in Del Mar, California, when a firepot exploded as it was re-fueled, spraying the viscous alcohol-based gel on victims sitting less than 10 feet away.

According to a July 12 report in the Del Mar Times newspaper: “One of the victims suffered third-degree burns over 50 percent of their body and had to be transported via helicopter to a hospital. The other two victims each suffered second and third degree burns over 20-30 percent of their body and were taken to the hospital via ambulance.”

In December 2011, a luckier consumer reported to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s public consumer complaint database, SaferProducts.gov:

“I purchased Firegel pourable Citronella from Bed Bath and Beyond. I went to pour some more in my fire pot and I guess it was still hot. The gel shot out, caught the bottle of firegel on fire and caught my patio chair on fire. Luckily it did not get on my skin and I put the lid on the bottle and it went out. I was also able to stomp my chair out but it was ruined.

Despite a total of 15 companies yanking the product of its shelves, and September 2011 announcement that nine manufacturers and distributors had recalled fire pot liquid fuel gel, fire  pots and their contents continue to represent a danger to consumers. And, the spectacular fallout from a patio ornament that had debuted about three years earlier continues to settle over the business, litigation and regulatory landscapes.

This week the CPSC announced its 2013 operations plan. Within the planning document is a brief mention that the agency would continue its technical review of the safety of fire pots and fuel gels in support of a potential rulemaking. In December 2011, the agency published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, but took no further regulatory steps this year. In several speeches, commission Chairman Inez Tennenbaum has noted. “Our rulemaking is exploring the question of whether it is possible to make gel fuel safe for consumers to use…” Continue reading →

Another Domino Falls: GM Adds Tire Age Warning

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On July 3, 2010, three generations of the Taylor family were returning from a family vacation in Disneyland to their home in Phoenix, when the right rear tire on their 2003 Chevy Trailblazer experienced a catastrophic tread separation. John Taylor, a retiree who worked all 38 years of his career at General Motors, lost control of the vehicle on I-10, about 45 minutes from home. The Trailblazer rolled over, fatally crushing Taylor and killing his 8-year-old grandson Quinn Levi, who was ejected when the third-row seat belt unlatched. Taylor’s wife, Eileen, his son-in-law, Bill, and his daughter Susanne Levi, who bought the Trailblazer with her father’s employee discount, suffered upper body injuries. The youngest son, secured in a child safety seat, was unharmed.

The tire that failed was a seven-year-old full-sized spare that had been rotated into service in 2007. Before that, it stayed stored in the spare well, right up near the engine exhaust system, where the hot exhaust pipe, combined with the brutally hot climate of Phoenix, accelerated the thermo-oxidation of the BF Goodrich Rugged Trail tire, diminishing its strength.

“This was the perfect storm” says Phoenix attorney Curt Clausen, who represents the Taylor-Levi family in a civil lawsuit against manufacturer General Motors. Continue reading →

Office Depot Declines to Launch Recall for a Chair that Launches Occupants Backwards

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Riddle: What’s the difference between two office chairs made by the same Chinese company, sold by the same big box retailer, with the same registration number, with the same bad weld that sends users flying backwards when it breaks?

Answer: One was recalled in April 2012 and one wasn’t.

Bonus Answer: The chair that wasn’t recalled actually garnered more complaints than the one that was!

This is a riddle not easily solved – especially by consumers unfortunate enough to have purchased the Gibson Leather Office Chair from Office Depot. In March 2010, Nancy Losey of San Antonio, Texas was sitting in a Gibson Leather Office Chair, manufactured by the Wonderful Year Furniture Company, imported by Swinton Avenue Trading Company, based in Boca Raton, Fla, and sold exclusively by Office Depot, when it suddenly collapsed. The seat plate underneath her chair had separated from the chair base, because of a weld failure at that juncture. Ms. Losey fell to the floor and broke her hip, requiring a hip replacement surgery.

The Gibson Leather Office Chair has the same design and product registration number as the Office Depot Biella Office Chair, which is manufactured by the Wonderful Year furniture company, imported by Swinton Avenue Trading Company, based in Boca Raton, Fla, and sold exclusively by Office Depot. But in April, Swinton Avenue Trading Company was forced to recall 307,000 Biella chairs. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission press release, Office Depot had received 11 reports of the breaking chairs and falling consumers with injuries. Consumers could go to Office Depot for a $55 store card – the price of the Biella chair – to replace it or to be used for other Office Depot merchandise.

In October, Attorney Paula Wyatt, who represented Losey in a product liability case against Swinton Avenue Trading, wrote to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission alerting them to the similarities between the Gibson and the Biella. Same product registration number, same bad weld in same critical place. A couple of key differences: Office Deport got more complaints – 18 – about collapsing Gibson chairs between 2009 and 2010, and the Gibson retailed at $39.00. Continue reading →

Moving Tire Recalls into the 21st Century

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Safety Research & Strategies has urged the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to add Tire Identification Numbers to a newly mandated web portal to identify recalls.

In September, the agency published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the possible changes to the provisions regarding Early Warning Reporting data. It also proposed requiring automobile manufacturers to submit Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN) of specifically recalled vehicles, and maintain records of the recall remedy status of each specific vehicle. This was a requirement of the Motor Vehicle Safety Improvement Act, contained within the highway re-authorization bill known as Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, MAP-21, for short.

The recall statute mandates that NHTSA require that motor vehicle safety recall information be made available to the public on the Internet, and authorizes the Secretary of Transportation to require each manufacturer to do so. In the NPRM, NHTSA explained that it already had a website where consumers can look up recalls by vehicle make and model, or by the recall campaign number.  It proposed to simply add a VIN field to its current search capacity.

The authors of MAP- 21, however, forgot to require the same of tire manufacturers. SRS has submitted comments to this docket suggesting that the agency add a TIN-look-up, along with a VIN.

The omission is another sad chapter in the history of the Tire Identification Number (TIN) and tire safety. The Tire Identification Number has its origins in a Rubber Manufacturers’ Association strategy to seize the regulatory reins from the National Highway Safety Bureau, predecessor to NHTSA, as the tire identification standard was promulgated more than 40 years ago. It was established to help consumers identify tires in a recall. But, as is the case in many rulemakings, industry fought hard to mold the regulations to its own ends and convenience. Continue reading →

Why is Toyota Recalling the Land Cruiser?

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The Toyota Unintended Acceleration floor mat recalls are now assuming the sprawling Del-Boca-Vista proportions of a seniors-only condo development in Sarasota. Last week, Toyota announced Phase 12 of its accelerator pedal modification and floor mat replacement recall. The newest vehicles to join the 14 million that have been recalled worldwide for unintended acceleration are 10,500 Toyota Land Cruisers in the 2008-2011 model years.

The remedy involves modifying the rigid plastic accelerator pedal, and equipping the vehicle with newly designed Toyota All Weather Floor Mats. 

 Now every time we hear about another Toyota floor mat recall, we kick ourselves for not buying rubber futures. But, this one has us wondering. Number one: there has been no public announcement of the recall. It is nowhere to be found on Toyota’s website.  Two: all of the documents in the public file for Recall 12V305 are not for the Land Cruiser, but for this summer’s recall of the Lexus RX350 and 450. Unintended Acceleration Recall Number 11, you may remember, was triggered by a NHTSA inquiry:

 “NHTSA approached Toyota regarding this issue late last month after the agency observed an increase in consumer complaints and other reports regarding pedal entrapment in these vehicles. When Toyota confirmed last week that it had received a significant volume of complaints on the same issue, NHTSA asked the manufacturer to conduct a recall.” Continue reading →

Ford Steering Problems Come into Focus

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Headed to the top of the Early Warning Reporting charts with a bullet: 2012 Ford Focus steering failures. In the last four quarters, which includes the first half of 2012, there have been about 13 injury claims. Randy Whitfield of Quality Control Systems Corp., who regularly trawls this data, says that it is unusual to see so many steering-related claims in the 2012 model year, given the total for this very large fleet – one of the top-sellers for 2012 – so far.

The 2012 Ford Focus, is an all-new redesign, with – you guessed it: Electronic Power-Assisted Steering (EPAS). Electronic Power Steering (EPS) is one of our favorite automotive technology advancements plagued with failures when introduced – just ask Honda, GM and Toyota. All three have battled EPS malfunctions. The latter two prompted defect investigations which prompted one Technical Service Bulletin and one recall. The EPS issue is yet another example of automotive technology advancing without functional safety standards and beyond the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s ability to regulate or enforce.

A Ford video on the Focus EPAS purrs about how the sensors achieve steering “that feels just right” and “helps keep you firmly planted and in control.” (Watch) 

Perhaps Ford’s EPAS keeps drivers planted a little too firmly – once the steering goes, it’s pretty hard to turn the wheel, according to owner reports. Consumer complaints show that the problem is a right-out-of-the-box phenomenon, with drivers generally reporting that within a few minutes of starting operation, power steering fails and Steering Assist Fault displays on the dash. (There’s another category of high-speed wander-type complaints, too.) Some had their first loss-of-steering-control incident within the first week of ownership, and many have had multiple occurrences. The failure usually occurs at low speed, and yet, there are situations in which losing steering is mighty dangerous, like when turning into traffic. About 20 owners of 2012 Focus vehicles have lodged complaints with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations. One West Virginia owner reported: “While backing out of a driveway the steering system failed. I rolled down a hill and into a wooded area. The system gave an indicator light of steering system failure and also the braking system did not engage. I lost complete control of the vehicle.” Continue reading →

Whatever Happened to Company Doe?

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For now, Company Doe – the first to launch a court challenge against the publication of a complaint in saferproducts.gov, the publicly accessible database mandated under the 2008 Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, will remain anonymous. A July ruling by a U.S. District Court judge, made public yesterday, maintains the seal on any records that identify the company, the product or the facts of the dispute. Continue reading →

Toyota Power Window Fires and Excessive Lubrication: A Worldwide Epidemic

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Question for the lads and lassies over at the Office of Defects Investigation: Are you going to penalize Toyota for waiting three years to recall a variety of models in the U.S. for power window switch fires, after it launched recalls for 770,540 substantially similar vehicles of the same model years in China, New Zealand and Japan in August and October of 2009?

The power window door fire issue got our attention February, when NHTSA opened Preliminary Evaluations into power window switch fires in the General Motors 2006-2007 Chevy Trailblazers and several 2007 Toyota models, including the Camry, the RAV4, the Highlander Hyrbrid and the Yaris. Consumers were reporting spontaneous burn incidents emanating from the power window switch area, starting –  but not always ending – with smoke and noxious odors. Few injuries; but many of the incidents happened while the vehicle was underway, and let’s face it, interior compartment fires are very distracting while driving.

It was NHTSA’s preliminary theory that perhaps the two automakers shared a common window switch supplier that would explain the defect trend.  And, both investigations proceeded together closely in parallel – like VPA1 and VPA2 circuits on the Accelerator Pedal Position Sensor in some early model Toyota Camrys. (Sorry, we can’t resist a little Unintended Acceleration humor.)  In mid-June, ODI bumped both PEs up to Engineering Analyses, and it turned out that GM and Toyota did not share suppliers.

GM was the first to concede the need for a recall. On August 17, GM recalled 249,260 2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer EXT and GMC Envoy XL, 2006-07 Chevrolet Trailblazer; GMC Envoy; Buick Rainer; SAAB 9-7x; and lsuzu Ascender s in a slew of states because fluid could seep into the door module, causing corrosion and a short that could render the power window or door locks inoperable, and in some cases, ignite. Continue reading →

Changes to Recall Regs: A Ray of Sunshine!

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When is a safety recall not really a safety recall?  When the manufacturer submitting the Part 573 Defect and Non-Compliance Report (49 CFR Part 573) says it isn’t.

The Recall Management Division’s files are dotted with many such non-admission admissions. For example, in February, Goodyear recalled nearly 41,000 of its Silent Armor Tires in six sizes. The company conceded that these tires had high rates of warranty and property damage claims, and that the tire’s lack of robustness could result in a partial tread separation and a crash. Three months earlier, two Texas college students died in a rollover crash, after the left rear Silent Armor tire on the pick-up truck suffered a tread separation.

Goodyear, however, “found no safety issues” and deemed its recall a “customer satisfaction campaign,” to NHTSA.

If NHTSA’s proposed changes to the recall regulations are eventually adopted, the practice of manufacturers making signing statements will end. The agency is also proposing to require automakers to file defect and non-compliance reports via the Internet, including notices of foreign recalls. The agency is proposing asking manufacturers to submit the specific Vehicle Identification Number for each recalled vehicle, so that consumers can search a recall by their vehicle’s specific VIN. Unfortunately, there appears to be no such provision for the Tire Identification Number (TIN). Manufacturers will continue to submit TIN ranges only, and there will be no Web portal, which the public can use to determine if a specific tire has been recalled. Continue reading →

Further Tinkering to EWR Unlikely to Make it More Useful

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is proposing amendments to the Early Warning Reporting system, ostensibly to sharpen it as a tool in the Office of Defects Investigation’s back pocket, but outside researchers who regularly parse EWR data say that the proposal misses huge opportunities to actually make the system better. 

In 2000, Congress passed the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act in the wake of the Ford Explorer/Firestone tire fiasco. The Early Warning Reporting system, a major component of the legislation, requires manufacturers to submit reams of death, injury, property damage and warranty data to the government on a quarterly basis. The information was supposed to help government investigators identify defect trends before they become full-blown debacles.

And yet, nearly a decade later, EWR did nothing to prevent the Toyota Unintended Acceleration disaster that has resulted in deaths, injuries, property damage crashes, 11 recalls related to floor mat entrapment, trim panel interference and sticking accelerator pedals, the alleged causes of the unintended acceleration complaints. So, you might expect that the agency, which could never have seen that one coming – what with the numerous consumer petitions pleading for answers, serial investigations into the problem, and recalls that never seem to make the complaints go away – would adjust its EWR reporting categories accordingly. Continue reading →