Vehicle recalls have been around just about a long as vehicles themselves have been, but you’d be forgiven for thinking that in recent years, there are more of them than ever. So many, in fact, that it's impossible for outlets like us to cover them all.
And so we generally devote our time and space to those campaigns that affect large numbers of models and/or popular models and those that concern real safety issues.
A new study shows that there’s a basis for the feeling that recalls are on the rise. According to data compiled and analyzed by investment bank and consulting firm Stout, there was a record number of light-vehicle recall campaigns in North America in 2021. At the same time, overall, fewer vehicles were affected by those campaigns.
This illustrates one thing: the increasing number of small problems that can occur today due to the often complex technology found in new models.
Specifically, individual recall campaigns reached a record 406 in 2021, up from 317 in 2020. As for the total number of vehicles affected, it dropped to 21.6 million in 2021, down from 28.9 million in 2020, again according to Stout data.
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Two campaigns in 2021 each affected more than 1 million vehicles: a Ford recall of 2.6 million older models for potentially faulty airbags and a Mercedes-Benz recall of 1.3 million newer vehicles, up to five years old, for a software error.
“Having only two recalls over a million units is a significant decline compared to 2019 and 2020 where we have six such campaigns,” said Anson Smuts, a manager in the litigation, compliance and investigations group at Stout.
On the other end of the spectrum, there were 11 single-vehicle recalls in 2021 – “a new record”, noted Anson Smuts.
Last year also saw the largest percentage of recall campaigns that affected fewer than 100,000 vehicles. This trend towards more, smaller-scale recalls has been growing over the past few years.
“This may relate to an improvement in the ability to detect recall-worthy defects earlier on and an improved traceability of those vehicles, thereby reducing the number of vehicles manufactured with those defects,” Smuts explained.
Campaigns affecting vehicles at least eight years old also saw a decrease from 27 in 2020 to 25 in 2021. The most common problem area in both 2020 and 2021 were airbags.
As for 2022 to date, there were 89 recalls in the first quarter, affecting 8.9 million vehicles in the process. At this rate, 36 million units would be recalled by the end of December, but it is difficult to establish a trend with recalls, as each one is unique and different.
Still, it will be interesting to compare the 2022 numbers when they come out next year to see if the trend continues.