There's a great temptation to rate the severity of vehicle recalls in terms of magnitude. But recalling 5 million vehicles for something minor may be nowhere near as devastating to a manufacturer as recalling a half million for something that is truly dangerous. And then there are cars that suffer only one recall while others seem to be recalled every week or so. Recalls simply aren't created equal.
Toyota's current snowballing recall crisis is certainly massive, but not unprecedented. In fact, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the current Toyota unintended sudden acceleration recall, at 4.3 million vehicles, ranks only sixth on its list of top 10 recalls of all time. Ford's 1996 recall of 7.9 million vehicles built between 1988 and 1993 for a faulty ignition module remains the largest. But that mega-size recall didn't keep Ford from reporting $4.4 billion in profits during 1996 or a then-record $6.9 billion in profits during 1997.
It's not size that makes a recall bad, it's the damage it does to the reputation of a company's products. That's why the Toyota news is so stunning, and why the most notorious recalls in history aren't necessarily the biggest.
This is, of course, subjective. But here is PM's list of the five most notorious vehicle recalls in history.
1. 1991 to 2001 Ford Explorer
Year of Recall: 2001
Back in the 1990s Ford was an earnings powerhouse and no single vehicle was more responsible for that financial performance than the family-friendly Explorer SUV. Engineered using components from the Ranger compact truck, the original Explorer was inexpensive for the company to build and sold in huge numbers. It was easily the best-selling SUV in America through most of the decade.
The Explorer, however, earned a reputation for being, well, tipsy. Carrying much of its weight up high, it wasn't as stable as the lower-slung car-based station wagons it essentially replaced. In an emergency-handling situation, that meant that the Explorer didn't behave like a station wagon either--it sometimes rolled over. And unfortunately, the Firestone tires with which many Explorers were originally equipped had tread separation problems, and that meant that emergency-handling situations occurred too often.
According to The Wall Street Journal in 2001, more than 200 deaths were at that time attributable to the Firestone and Explorer combination. That year, the Explorers were recalled for a tire change.
Even though the Explorer was completely redesigned for the 2002 model year, it couldn't hold its sales dominance. And during last year's "Cash for Clunkers" program, the Department of Transportation reported that six of the top 10 vehicles turned in as clunkers were various model years of the first-generation Ford Explorer.
2. 1971 to 1976 Ford Pinto and Mercury Bobcat
Year of Recall: 1978
By the late 1960s it was apparent that Detroit's automakers faced a serious small-car challenge from Japanese and German imports. Chrysler responded by hooking up with Mitsubishi to bring in the reasonable Dodge Colt and its own British subsidiary for the terrible Plymouth Cricket. GM's response was the disastrous Chevrolet Vega. Ford produced the Pinto, a car that turned out to be truly tragic.
For the engineers designing it, the pressure to bring the Pinto in at price was intense--the goal was for it to cost no more than $2000 when it went on sale in the fall of 1970 as a 1971 model. The necessary penny pinching showed not only in the cut-rate interior, but in the fundamental engineering, including the placement of the fuel tank behind the rear axle with a fuel-filler pipe that was vulnerable to bursting in a rear-end collision.
A notorious internal memo at Ford indicated that better protecting the fuel tank would cost about $11 per Pinto over its production run, but that it would be cheaper for the company to pay settlements for injuries and deaths from the resulting fires instead. While there has been a legal controversy about the memo's meaning and context ever since, its revelation was devastating. The Pinto has been a prime example of coldhearted corporate calculation ever since.
In 1978 1.4 million Pintos (and its near-twin, the Mercury Bobcat) were recalled to have plastic shields installed to protect their gas tanks. In addition Ford has paid out millions in claims from Pinto fires.
3. 1980 to 1982 General Motors X-Cars
Year of Recall: Various
When GM introduced its 1980 front-drive "X-Cars"--the Buick Skylark, Chevrolet Citation, Oldsmobile Omega and Pontiac Phoenix--it seemed that finally the company had produced truly contemporary small cars that could compete with the best from around the world. But it turned out that what GM had built were cars destined to be some of the most recalled in history.
According to the NHTSA database, the 1980 Chevrolet Citation, for example, has been recalled an amazing nine times. Maladies on that car included everything from faulty fuel lines to steering gear that detached from its mounts to coil springs in the front suspension that could slip out of their seats. Many buyers of early X-Cars felt that their cars were spending more time in the shop than on the road. Every announcement of another X-Car recall helped seal GM's reputation for building its cars shoddily.
Of course the X-Cars had quality problems that ranged well beyond safety recalls too. But it was those early recalls, in the beginning of the X-Cars' model run, that first called them out as terrible products to the buying public.
4. 1978 to 1983 Audi 5000
Year of Recall: 1982 to 1987
With only about 92,000 vehicles involved, the first recall of the Audi 5000 back in the 1980s was relatively puny in size. But its effect was absolutely devastating to Audi's business in North America.
The first Audi 5000 recall, in 1982, was for improperly positioned floor mats that could unintentionally pin the accelerator pedal, potentially leading to runaway acceleration. At some point the CBS news program 60 Minutes noticed this allegation and in 1986 ran a story showing Audi 5000s running wildly out of control. That the 60 Minutes story used cars clandestinely modified by a self-proclaimed "expert" or that, almost invariably, the unintended sudden acceleration could be attributed to drivers pressing the wrong pedal, didn't matter. The damage was done, and Audi's sales plummeted. From a peak of 74,061 cars in 1985, Audi's sales dropped to just 12,283 cars in 1991.
Audi wouldn't begin a significant sales recovery in North America until the introduction of the all-new 1996 A4 model.
The final recall of Audi 5000s equipped with automatic transmissions in 1987 had dealers install an interlock that wouldn't allow the car to be shifted out of park unless the brake pedal was fully depressed. Such interlocks have been common on new cars ever since.
5. 1976 Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare
Year of Recall: 1976 and 1977
There was absolutely nothing startling about how the new 1976 Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare twins were engineered. These compact-size coupes, sedans and wagons were strictly conventional mid-1970s cars with Chrysler's proven slant-Six or V8 engines in their noses, a unibody chassis and a strictly ordinary suspension system. But despite that, the Aspen and Volare were among the most recalled cars of all time. The 1976 versions of these two were recalled an incredible eight times by the end of 1977 by the NHTSA.
The recalls were for everything from the emissions control systems to fuel systems and seatbelt retractors. It was almost unfathomable how many screwups had been engineered into these two very ordinary cars.
Aspen and Volare owners, however, had more than just the recalls to worry about; rust was also a major problem with the twins, and various mechanical maladies seemed to strike them constantly. This was the Chrysler Corporation at its lowest ebb--the company was in danger of going bankrupt during 1978 and 1979. It was only a series of government loan guarantees, engineered by its then-new CEO Lee Iacocca, that saved Chrysler in 1979.
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