QOTD: The Recall Blues
We've been reporting on recalls a fair bit lately. Of course, covering recalls is always part of the automotive journalism biz, since it's a bread-and-butter topic.
I'm willing to bet some of you in our reading audience drive affected vehicles. I also once worked as a service advisor, so I've been around the dealership side of the experience. What I am wondering is -- are you the type of person who schedules service right away when the recall notice hits your mailbox? Does it depend on what's at issue -- in other words, do you address safety recalls right away but let something that's fairly harmless linger? Or do you just say "I'll get to it when I get to it", even if it means taking a gamble on your safety and the safety of others on the road?
Sound off below.
[Image: iQoncept/Shutterstock.com]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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I always jump right on it, safety related or not. I actually had one on my 2004 Saab (!) four years ago....I even got a free loaner out of it.
Just got my Bolt's battery recall done yesterday. Happily, we've got a dealer that's supporting the Bolt competently, getting the battery kit was supposed to take five weeks since I signed the work order. It took two and a half. Pulled the car in 0730 Monday, got a call at 1600 that afternoon saying I could pick it up. Didn't get down there until this morning, 255 miles range with frost on the windows. I'm happy.
I would normally go right away, except that the latest trend is to simply advise you of a problem before they have an actual solution.
Two of my cars are under safety recall right now, and I scheduled them for sequential days but the soonest I could get in was 4 weeks. So much for safety.
Haven’t had any urgent safety issues under recalls in my 28 years of driving Hondas, so in the event something comes out, I’ll usually see when the dealer might have time in the next month or so, then go from there.
I’ve been fortunate in that my cars have had proper airbags, or have been traded or sold away before the recalls were issued for the vehicles.