Be Vigilant of Car Recalls: Lessons For Car Owners

by Silicon Valley Blogger on February 3, 2010

One of the biggest consumer stories of late has been the Toyota recall. As someone whose been shameless about only driving imports, this particular story hits home. For most of my life, I’ve had the long-standing belief that “foreign” cars are supposed to be well-made, especially compared to their American counterparts. But maybe we should take a closer look at what it really means to be American vs “Foreign Made”: when you look under the hood, you’ll realize that there’s a lot more in common between those designations.

car recalls

Now that the news has broken on the matter of this massive recall, we see that it’s given one of the big reputable car manufacturers a black eye. So maybe it’s time to ask: are car imports really supposedly better than American cars? And who exactly is making a high quality car these days? I’d love to hear you sound off on this!

Be Vigilant of Car Recalls: Lessons For Car Owners

That said, here are some interesting tips from The Huffington Post, which tell us how to minimize or avoid experiencing problems with our vehicles:

  • Make sure you always properly service your car.
  • Do proper maintenance on your vehicle, such as rotating your tires and changing your brake pads.
  • If your accelerator sticks, put your car in neutral, then brake firmly. If this does not work, turn your ignition off and coast to the side of the road.
  • Keep in touch with your dealer if possible (so they know where to reach you about any issues).
  • Register with DriverSide.com to get news about your car (e.g. recalls, etc); this site also provides you with service notifications and alerts to help you keep with your maintenance schedule.
  • When buying a car, take a look at car sites like Edmunds.com and Automotive.com. Check out Experian’s service called AutoCheck and/or check out Vin History, which offers free vehicle history reports.
  • If you plan to drive your car to the ground like I do, then you’ll need to be watchful and proactive about your car’s health!

Personal Financial Articles

Now for some reads around the web:

If you enjoyed this post, you can get free regular updates through our RSS Feed, or you can have our latest posts delivered to your email inbox by supplying your address here. Your address will only be used for this purpose, and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Categorized under: Money Articles

Related Posts:

{ 1 trackback }

Young Couple Can’t Afford Credit Card Payment. Help Fix Their Money And Marriage
February 5, 2010 at 8:26 am

{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }

1 driver detective February 4, 2010 at 5:39 am

Hi, I live in Turin – Italy, the FIAT city. The car industry here is also having problems, with car sales going down along with high unemployment like in Detroit. But drivers prefer smaller cars in Europe.

2 Saving Money Today February 4, 2010 at 7:11 am

I’m really surprised at how Toyota has handled the situation. They seem to be very reactive instead of proactively getting in front of the problem.

I just heard on the news this morning that there is a software problem with new Prius models that can cause a problem with anti-lock brakes and there have been over 100 incidents reported. Apparently they’ve solved the problem in the factory so newly constructed cars won’t be affected. But they haven’t figured out how to fix it on cars already sold so they’re hesitant to inform the owners.

That doesn’t sound like good business to let your customers continue driving a potentially unsafe vehicle when you know there is a problem.

3 Kosmo @ The Casual Observer February 4, 2010 at 9:35 am

“But they haven’t figured out how to fix it on cars already sold so they’re hesitant to inform the owners. ”

Certainly, they have figured out how to fix it on cars already sold. REPLACE the problem parts.

However, they probably haven’t figured out how to fix it in a cost-effective manner (repair rather than replace).

4 J. Money February 4, 2010 at 9:57 am

Thanks for the shout out my friend! Glad you enjoyed the article ;)

5 Credit Girl February 4, 2010 at 9:57 am

It’s unfortunate to see all these recalls from a brand that we trusted and thought was high quality but I guess it’s really time to re-evaluate this notion. I don’t really know which companies are good now…

6 20smoney February 4, 2010 at 1:22 pm

Good links!

7 TimR February 5, 2010 at 2:46 pm

Toyota has been having some problems for years, finally the news media caught on. Toyota has had problems with engine sludge, recalled 1 Million cars world wide for a steering shaft problem including the Prius. For some reason the mainsteam media missed these. Another issue, truck frames rusting so bad that the spare tire carrier has fallen off (on trucks that are only a few years old). Also there are several other truck recalls for problems that could cause loss of steering. Mainstream media, nope missed it again.

Here’s a list I check from time to time. Notice all the big automakers are on it.

I don’t hate Toyota, I currently drive a ‘04 Honda accord but I’m glad to see that now that they have gotten to be one of the biggest the media is no longer giving them a pass. We put our trust in our vehicles to get us safely where we want to go and all car safety problems should be front page news.

8 Gwen @ Frugal-Bugle.com February 6, 2010 at 11:04 am

I’ve owned Toyotas (Corolla, Echo and Matrix) for 20 years. I love them. Great cars and great service. I think the media is making a big deal of this. A friend of mine used to sell parts to the Big 3 and Toyota. None of the defective parts ever came back from the Big 3 but if there was even a glimmer of a problem with a part, Toyota would return it for a replacement.

9 шлюхи дешевые в москве February 9, 2010 at 5:59 am

Toyota = brands!

10 Pam February 10, 2010 at 6:46 pm

Thanks for the advice and for the links to those sites. My husband did a lot of research before deciding to purchase a Toyota Corolla a couple of years ago. We have been fairly happy with it and I think overall Toyota vehicles are good quality. It’s unfortunate what has happened recently but I think more than just Toyota will be getting their hand slapped as other car companies are being exposed too. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

11 Biffy February 23, 2010 at 2:19 pm

Great article, would be nice if you make longer one with more tips :)

12 Silicon Valley Blogger February 23, 2010 at 2:23 pm

Most of my articles are much longer. Guess I took a break on this one! :)

Leave a Comment