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Safety-related flaws at inacceptable level, study concludes

Safety-related flaws at inacceptable level, study concludes

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By eeNews Europe



According to the study, faulty safety equipment in the cars was by far the most numerous reason for car vendors to launch a call-back campaign. In particular the defective airbags sold by Japanese supplier Takata contributed to the high number of vehicles affected. Overall, safety-related problems accounted for 60.1 percent of all recalls. Electric and electronic ranked second at 14.2 percent whereas power train defects were responsible for 8.2 percent of the problems.

The increasing amount of electronics and software in the vehicles, though beneficial for new customer-related functions, is contributing significantly to increasing the risk of a malfunction, the study states, referring to the Fiat-Chrysler (FCA) recall action due to a hacking attack to electronic vehicle functions. This problem alone resulted in a recall action with a 6-digit number of vehicles involved. In this context, the author of the study, Stefan Bratzel, called for new approaches in the quality management. “Not only for new vehicle functions but also for an improved product quality, carmakers will have to carry out over-the-air software updates”, Bratzel wrote.

The recall quota which expresses the number of cars affected by a recall campaign over the number of newly admitted vehicles in a given year, amounted to 262 percent in the US as reference market. Thus, in 2015 more than twice as many vehicles were subject to a recall than were sold as new; 45.8 million vehicles had to visit the garage in the context of a recall. While in 2014 this quota was much higher and hit the 379 percent mark, the study still called the 2015 level “inacceptable” and described the quality management in the car industry as “in need of improvement”.

Japanese ranked highest in this negative list. Mitsubishi featured a recall quota of 826%, Mazda 755% and Honda 676%. These high numbers are mainly associated to the Takata airbag problem; in the case of Mazda, more than 50 percent were related to ignition switch problems with vehicles built in the 1990 decade.

Tesla had a recall quota of 249%, which places the brand in the middle range. Problems with the safety belt triggered a recall campaign which hit all Model S vehicles built between 2012 and 2015. After GM’s ignition switch problem in 2014 which affected 27 million vehicles, GM achieved a recall quota of “only” 133 percent, placing the company in the upper third. The German brands achieved recall quotas of 168% (BMW), Volkswagen (111%) and Daimler (94%) – “not really convincing” comments Bratzel. Volkswagen’s 580.000 vehicles that have to be recalled as a consequence of the company’s exhaust gas scandal however are not considered as safety relevant but as electronics related. Like the Japanese manufacturers, Volkswagen and BMW had problems with defective airbags. VW and Audi also had some problems with brakes and leaky fuel lines.

The study also names the best brand: This honour is due to Volvo: A recall quota of just 18% and a total amount of just 10.000 vehicles affected makes the to Swedish manufacturer number one carmaker in terms of quality.

Related articles:

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Volkswagen has given engineering a black eye

Spansion CEO: "Quality happens at the system level"

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