NHTSA Slaps $20 Million Dollar Fine On Mercedes Over Recall Handling
Don’t worry, your car is safe. The fine comes from Mercedes’ delay in notifying owners and NHTSA of important recall information.
Mercedes-Benz is on the NHTSA naughty list right now. It seems as though Mercedes has a problem with communicating their recalls to the proper authorities. Compounding that is a lax attitude to communicate recalls to consumers as well. According to Car and Driver, NHTSA had been looking into Mercedes recalls from 2016 through 2018 and found a number of errors. Customers were sent letters about recalls on their vehicles later than the normal allotted window. As well, it was discovered when filing, Mercedes omitted pertinent information.
Close to half of all recalls from Mercedes were flagged for not being in compliance with NHTSA procedures. Those stem from leaving NHTSA out of a lot of information, including: taking longer than five days to notify the agency of a new recall, did not notify when repairs on recalls would begin, late quarterly reports, late on notifying product defects, and glitches in their VIN search tool. As well, Mercedes would notify customers over two months after a recall was initially issued.
These are all pretty big issues for Mercedes. NHTSA keeps our roads safe based on these notifications and reports, but Mercedes still seems to struggle with keeping on top of things. That’s despite a 2015 effort to get things cleaned up. Of main concern was the 40 of 101 reports that were handled incorrectly. That left NHTSA in the dark regarding reports that cover current and past recalls, damage to property, and injury. Thats not only bad for the agency, but also is a nightmare for public perception.
The fallout from this extends beyond the $20 million dollar fine. Investigations into Mercedes procedures will last at least two years. NHTSA will be giving Mercedes regular audits in that timeline to ensure that progress is being made to reduce the timeline for notifications and clean up the overall process.
If any of this is a concern to you, Mercedes’ own VIN lookup tool can be found right here. Let’s just hope it doesn’t experience the same glitches as found by the NHTSA.
Photos: Mercedes-Benz
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