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Eugene

(62,646 posts)
Thu Apr 4, 2019, 10:11 PM Apr 2019

Used car dealers didn't want to fix deadly defects, so they wrote a law to avoid it

Source: USA Today/Arizona Republic/Center for Public Integrity

Used car dealers didn’t want to fix deadly defects, so they wrote a law to avoid it

By Rui Kaneya with Pratheek Rebala, Center for Public Integrity
Updated 14 hours ago

-snip-

By the time Solis was killed in 2015, similar accidents were piling up nationwide amid an unprecedented series of recalls for an array of dangerous defects – from shrapnel-flinging airbags to ignition switches that shut off engines.

For auto dealers, the string of accidents was a warning sign of what was to come: a barrage of lawsuits filed against them for selling recalled used cars without fixing them first.

Auto dealers came up with a plan to pre-empt the problem.

They crafted what’s known as “model legislation” that would allow them to continue selling recalled used cars, so long as they disclosed open recalls to customers somewhere in a stack of sales documents. They then turned to their army of lobbyists – more than 600 on call in 43 states – to help get the measure passed, one state at a time.

The effort is paying off.

In the past five years, versions of auto dealers’ copycat bill have been introduced in at least 11 states – California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. So far only Tennessee and Pennsylvania have adopted them, but Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey and New York still have measures under consideration.

-snip-


Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/04/03/takata-airbag-gm-ignition-switch-recalls-used-car-dealers-sue-deaths-crashes-honda/3162202002/
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Used car dealers didn't want to fix deadly defects, so they wrote a law to avoid it (Original Post) Eugene Apr 2019 OP
whether or not car is new, another work-around with defects is that the mechanic will tell you diva77 Apr 2019 #1
So it's OK to sell a product having a known potentially deadly defect? KY_EnviroGuy Apr 2019 #2
New car dealers tend to be dickish about this..... Mopar151 Apr 2019 #3

diva77

(7,880 posts)
1. whether or not car is new, another work-around with defects is that the mechanic will tell you
Fri Apr 5, 2019, 01:02 AM
Apr 2019

that the computer indicator doesn't say there is a problem, so they won't fix the defect -- but the computer isn't programmed to detect certain defects. And they get away with this all the time.

KY_EnviroGuy

(14,595 posts)
2. So it's OK to sell a product having a known potentially deadly defect?
Fri Apr 5, 2019, 01:19 AM
Apr 2019

We are indeed now living in a bizarro world under the Republican plutocratic thumb.

One would think the DOT (via The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) would have strict rules that apply when ownership is changed.

One would also think the insurance industry would insist on cars being safe before issuing new policies!.

........ ..........

Mopar151

(10,177 posts)
3. New car dealers tend to be dickish about this.....
Sat Apr 13, 2019, 12:58 PM
Apr 2019

Particularly to used car dealers who may be "eating their lunch".

I have a friend who deals in high-end imports. When you get a car from his place, all the recalls have been done, the car is fully serviced, and 'put right'.
So he's telling us that the local P(retentious)~A(ss) dealer was holding up his recall work for 3 weeks or more, pretty much from spite or snobbery. "I was a Fiat dealer, goddammit! I can work somebody in!" .

When it's spring in VT, and you have Boxsters to sell, 3 weeks goes by like a root canal. I can only imagine what the big dealers are screaming at their lobbyists!

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