Non-recall actions raise questions on safety info disclosure

The Chevrolet Volt has had just one recall since its introduction four years ago. The problem, a faulty brake valve, affected just four cars, making it one of the smallest recalls in history.

But General Motors has fixed other problems on thousands of Volts for free through at least eight customer-satisfaction campaigns, which are less public than recalls and largely unregulated.

The repairs included reinforcing the battery pack and improving the battery coolant system after a government crash test sparked a widely publicized fire, prompting a congressional hearing and an investigation by federal regulators. Because neither GM nor the regulators determined that the fire was evidence of a safety defect, the automaker didn't have to use the word "recall," follow specific requirements for notifying customers or report how many Volts got fixed.

Customer-satisfaction campaigns, sometimes called "secret warranties" or "silent recalls" because consumers aren't always told of them, are used frequently across the industry -- not just at GM -- particularly as complex technology leads to more unforeseen hiccups after a vehicle goes on sale.

But big recalls by GM and Toyota Motor Corp. in recent years raise questions about whether dangerous problems could lurk in little-noticed service bulletins or customer-satisfaction campaigns, which aren't supposed to be used for safety-related defects.

"There's a ton of stuff that goes under the radar screen in the form of technical service bulletins and goodwill campaigns and customer-service campaigns and hidden warranties," said Gabriel Shenhar, a senior auto test engineer with Consumer Reports. "It's to the benefit of the consumer to have it done as a recall, so it doesn't go under the radar screen."

Many customer-satisfaction campaigns are, in fact, for relatively minor, potentially annoying issues that could affect the driver's comfort or the vehicle's appearance but wouldn't result in a crash; GM used one for the Volt to remedy a weather-related shortage of carpeted floor mats.

But conflict can arise when regulators and the public disagree with an automaker's stance that a particular problem has no safety implications -- if they ever find out about the problem at all. Touch screens, for example, typically have been addressed without recalls, but as cameras and other features that help drivers avoid crashing are added to those screens, malfunctions can have more hazardous consequences.

"There is not a sharp line between a service campaign and safety recall," said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety. Ditlow said the $1.2 billion penalty imposed on Toyota this year over its unintended-acceleration crisis, multiple ongoing investigations of GM's ignition recalls and greater scrutiny by regulators may compel automakers to use recalls for cases in which they might have acted with less urgency in the past.

"If you're looking at a billion-dollar fine, it changes your calculus," he said. "I think we're going to see more safety recalls and fewer service campaigns, but the service campaign is never going to go away."

From an automaker's standpoint, the biggest difference between a recall and other types of so-called field actions -- including customer-satisfaction campaigns, extended warranties, service bulletins, special-coverage programs and myriad similar nomenclatures -- is cost. Recalls come with a litany of regulatory requirements, and the completion rate for them tends to be higher, which means the company has to reimburse dealers for more repairs.

Automakers argue that they don't weigh costs when fixing flaws that jeopardize safety -- as GM CEO Mary Barra asserted during congressional hearings in April -- but they say most problems truly don't necessitate a recall. For less serious issues, customer-satisfaction campaigns spare automakers additional costs, with minimal public embarrassment.

The flip side is that some consumers may be kept in the dark and wind up paying for repairs themselves. Often, only customers who complain to their dealer learn that a free fix is available.

Those who go to independent garages or a dealership that doesn't do thorough research may miss out. And unlike recalls, many repairs happen only after a problem occurs, not to prevent one beforehand. In some cases, automakers send notifications to all affected owners, as GM did with its campaigns on the Volt.

Shenhar, the Consumer Reports engineer, said most recalls, while inconvenient to customers, shouldn't be perceived as a sign of poor quality and that trying to avoid them can be worse.

"Everybody has recalls," he said. "Recalls are better than the alternative. It's better that the manufacturer is above-board and says, 'We should have done it a little better in the first place, and we're inviting you to get it fixed.'"

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says more than 70 percent of recalled vehicles get repaired. Ditlow's Center for Auto Safety estimates that just 40 to 50 percent of those covered by customer-satisfaction campaigns do.

NHTSA says problems such as faulty air conditioners and radios, poor-quality paint and subpar brake pads don't require recalls. Defects that could result in a crash -- such as seat backs that fail unexpectedly, wiring problems that cause lights to go out and malfunctioning windshield wipers -- do.

But there are numerous examples of automakers using customer-satisfaction campaigns for defects in steering systems, headlights, airbags and other components that might contribute to injuries or deaths.

"Automakers compete vigorously with one another to provide their customers with the safest vehicles," Wade Newton, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said in an email. "Each company has every incentive to maintain vehicle safety and quality, not the least of which is a motivation to protect the consumer."

Non-recall field actions are difficult to track but, as the Volt shows, are generally more common than recalls. NHTSA began posting correspondence it receives about customer-service campaigns on its website in 2007, whether for safety-related problems or not, but the documents are comingled with what can be hundreds of other technical bulletins sent to dealers for any given model.

Five states -- California, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia and Wisconsin -- have "secret warranty" laws requiring automakers to provide written information about campaigns to owners and government officials. Lawmakers who worked on the Maryland bill in 2007 said consumers spend more than $1 billion annually unknowingly fixing problems that the manufacturer of their vehicle would have paid for.

Even dealers are sometimes unaware of what repairs the factory is offering to pay for.

In February, GM sent dealers a stop-delivery order and service bulletin on some heavy-duty pickups, only one of which had been sold at that time, for a fuse-block problem that could lead to engine-compartment fires. But three months later, it found that dealers had sold 20 unrepaired trucks to customers despite the stop-delivery order, so GM recalled those trucks and 38 unsold ones that hadn't been fixed.

Documents filed by GM show that at least six of its 65 recalls this year relate to previous, lesser field actions. At least two other recalls initially were proposed to be customer-satisfaction campaigns but got upgraded by the executives who approve them. A top NHTSA official criticized GM in a 2013 email, which Congress released publicly in April, for repeatedly using customer-satisfaction campaigns and service bulletins to address matters the agency deemed to be safety defects.

Automakers frequently have created customer-satisfaction campaigns or extended warranties in response to NHTSA investigations. That often has been enough to satisfy NHTSA so its staff can move on to examine other complaints.

In August, NHTSA closed an investigation into braking issues on 100,000 Toyota Camry hybrids after Toyota said it would offer extended-warranty coverage.

In March, NHTSA closed its inquiry of 1.6 million Ford Escapes, Fusions and other vehicles after Ford Motor Co. started a customer-satisfaction campaign for engine throttle-body problems that generated nearly 12,000 complaints. Last year, the agency closed an investigation into sticky accelerators after Ford agreed to a campaign covering throttle cables on nearly half a million Taurus and Mercury Sable sedans.

After GM offered Volt owners several "enhancements" in response to NHTSA's probe into the 2011 crash-test fire, regulators concluded that "further investigation does not appear to be warranted."

But it added this disclaimer, which it also used for the Camry hybrid and Ford throttle-body investigations: "The closing of this investigation does not constitute a finding by NHTSA that a safety-related defect does not exist."