Defective Cars

[Thales of Miletus]

Does anyone know where a person goes to report a manufactures neglect?

First I would need you guys to tell me if I have a worthy complaint, or if it should be expected wear and tear. Second I need to be given advice on which agency to contact and if there is any hope of resolution.

I won't name the dealer and manufacturer because I don't want to turn the thread into a flame war.

So the story is, that Brand A auto was recalled in the USA because it had a faulty timing chain tensioner. When the tension came off the chain it quickly broke it's guides and failed. However the Canadian arm of the same company didn't do a recall or even inform it's customers of the defect, leading to an expensive repair which is considered very common in repair shops.

Unfortunately, Joe Average would not know anything about the defect until it happens.

The failure can happen anytime after the car pulls off the lot. From 20,000 kms to 100,000 kms. If the car is under warranty you are in luck, if it isn't, it seems you are screwed.

I thought warranty covers unexpected failure. But if a defect is the manufacturers fault, then a recall is mandated. How does that work?

BTW the Manufacture advertised that the part was good for the life of the car, when the car was first brought to market. Big time fail imo.

[M.alex]

Did somebody's car happen to break when it was on your dyno Toma...errrr......Thales?

[94boosted]

Sounds like an Audi with a 4.2 V8???

I could be wrong here but a manufacturer is only required to do a recall if it's a safety issue, this doesn't necessarily constitute a safety issue so I don't believe they have to consider it a recall, maybe a TSB. In which case if it fails and you're off warranty you're hooped.

[Thales of Miletus]

Originally posted by 94boosted
Sounds like an Audi with a 4.2 V8???

I could be wrong here but a manufacturer is only required to do a recall if it's a safety issue, this doesn't necessarily constitute a safety issue so I don't believe they have to consider it a recall, maybe a TSB. In which case if it fails and you're off warranty you're hooped.

I would think it is a safety issue if a person was half way through the Rockies and their car died. Minus 40 and a dead engine is not good.

You were partly right about Audi, it is a related brand name.

I just read that their is a class action suit against the company in the states as well. Perhaps this is why it was recalled there and not here. Claims are be in the millions in the States but are limited here.

It is easy to find laws pertaining to America claims. But finding Canadian laws is not so easy.

IN the States these are considered breaches.

Section 2 of the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability distinguishes between three major types of product liability claims:

manufacturing defect,
design defect,
a failure to warn (also known as marketing defects).

[ianmcc]

Sounds like a VW Tiguan.

[speedog]

Difficult to say if you'll have any luck getting anyone working towards having this issue declared a recall in Canada.

We had a similar safety situation in a 1992 Chev Astro that lose all lights - first came on between Golden and Revelstoke at night and trust me, when you are on a windy, relatively remote two lane highway at night with no moon and all your lights including the dash lights just quit working at highway speeds, one's sphincter tightens up amazingly quick. Twenty seconds later and all lights back on. Twenty miles down the road same thing and this reoccurred 15-20 times until we got to Kelowna.

We did stop to investigate but couldn't find anything wrong and of course by the time we'd come to a stop, all lights would be working. The next day I checked all the wiring, fuses, etc and even took apart the headlight switch because it seemed to be the culprit but everything checked out okay. Did some snooping on the internet and found out the headlight switch had a recall issued in the USA for the exact problem we were experiencing but amazingly, no recall in Canada. Bought a new headlight switch (new and improved version) and never had a problem after that. Now how such a safety issue couldn't warrent a Canadian recall is beyond me.