Report: 11 million cars recalled so far in 2014; 2013’s total was 22 million

There are times when the news media exaggerates phenomena by providing extensive coverage. The recall situation this year is not one of those instances. Sure, 6 million of the recalls are from General Motors (about 2/3rds of their annual output, by the way). Though coverage has mostly been of GM’s issues, there have been some other rather significant players in the recall game: Nissan has called for service on 1 million Sentras, Altimas, Leaves, Pathfinders, NV200 taxis, and three Infiniti models for airbags that will not deploy and Honda has recalled 900,000 Odyssey minivans.

This humbling list includes VW’s Passat, the Ford recall from this morning, Mazda’s second try on recalling their ‘6, the Dodge Durango and Jeep Cherokee, and there are indications that this behavior is not nearing its end. Though it may seem like conjecture initially, what we have seen thus far this year indicates that the following is true: Toyota’s bomb-proof reputation not only became fettered with lawsuits, but they ended up paying out on a $1.2 billion fine. In the same way that playgrounds are currently being fun-proofed to prevent lawsuits from helicopter parents, the auto industry seems to have completed a cost benefit analysis that indicates this: It’s cheaper to recall than to pretend that there’s nothing wrong and be subject to a suit and humiliation later on.

-By: Sawyer Sutton

Source: Autoblog