Beyond the headlines, humdrum recalls annoy consumers

December 22, 2014 12:00 AM

News Editor overseeing coverage of Japan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Infiniti, Honda, Acura, Hyundai, Kia, Porsche, Volvo and global suppliers for Automotive News

Lindsay Chappell is the Mid-South bureau chief in the U.S. for Automotive News.

The year has been monopolized by headlines about General Motors ignition-switch recalls and Takata airbag recalls.

But a broader perspective is in order.

According to iSeeCars.com, a vehicle search engine headquartered near Boston, the single most recalled nameplate of the 2007-13 model year period has been … the Toyota FJ Cruiser.

And the second most recalled nameplate of the period?

Anyone?

The Toyota Tacoma pickup. Followed by the Toyota Tundra, Toyota RAV4 and Jeep Grand Cherokee.

This ranking represents an interesting take on tallying recalls. The iSeeCars data are primarily undertaken to gauge the consumer side of the nuisance -- to estimate how much of a vehicle owner’s time has been consumed in recent years with pesky recalls and sitting in service department lounges.

Bear with me.

The ranking is computed using government recall notices and third-party data, with iSeeCars calculating it by trim level. Explains iSeeCars CEO Phong Ly: “Consumers don’t really care whether a nameplate has been recalled. They don’t own an entire model line -- their vehicle is a specific trim level. All they want to know is whether their particular car was recalled.”

In other words, you’re probably not even aware of a recall over a little glitch in the navigation system used by your model if your specific car doesn’t contain that nav system.

So iSeeCars counts every recall of every trim package -- even redundantly counting the same recall several times if it occurs over multiple trim packages. The FJ Cruiser, for example, came in nine trim packages between the 2007 and 2013 model years. So if one recall encompassed all nine trims, it would count as nine recalls in the data.

On that basis, the Toyota nameplate tallied 387 recalls -- many of them the same component glitch counted several times. From that, iSeeCars computes that the vehicle averaged 6.1 recalls per trim level through those seven model years, up to Oct. 8, 2014. (That's 387 divided by 9 trims divided by 7 model years).

And from that number, the company estimates that the recalls caused the average FJ Cruiser owner to spend a total of 18.4 hours dealing with recalls.

All of which is a bit statistical, but it serves as a fair reminder: We tend to focus on the calamity and corporate financial impact and marketing fallout of big recalls. But there is also the reality of the harried customer cooling his heels in the dealership service lounge when he has better things to do. Too many of those and there might be a calamity of a different type.