MichiganRadio

What's With All The Car Recalls? Today, GM - Yesterday, Chrysler. ANN ARBOR, MI (Associated Press) - A new recall by General Motors, one day after a major Chrysler recall, may have the car-buying public wondering - what's up with all the recalls?

What's up, says Mike Quincy of Consumer Reports, is awareness and media scrutiny.

He says Toyota's massive recall of more than 8 million vehicles worldwide for unintended accelleration problems has given more publicity to every recall since - including recalls by Honda, Nissan, Ford, GM, and Chrysler.

But Quincy doesn't think the overall number of recalls is up. He says government investigations have led to the recall of more than 25 million vehicles - by every major U.S. automaker - over the past three years.

"So the rash of recalls that maybe we're talking about with Chrysler or GM or Toyota, it's really not a totally unusual occurrence," says Quincy, who works in the Auto Test Division of Consumer Reports.

Lexus recently recalled one of its luxury SUVS after Consumer Reports tested it and found a problem with the electronic stability control system during sharp, fast turns.

Toyota says a software change will remedy the problem.

Quincy acknowledges that vehicles are more complex these days - which could potentially lead to more recalls.

But he says that's a bad reason to eschew more technology on vehicles. Most recalls are for problems that can't hurt people, he says, and:

"You gotta really embrace the technology, because technology has brought on such incredible advances in automotive safety - electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes, head curtain airbags - all this technology and it turns out, it's saving a lot of lives."

The GM recall is unusual in that it involves more than fifteen different recent model cars, SUVS and trucks. The company says it's unaware of any injuries or crashes related to the problem.

GM already issued a recall related to the heated wiper systems. But fires broke out on several of the repaired vehicles. So now GM will disable the modules that heat the windshield wiper fluid, and compensate customers $100.00 for the loss of the feature. © Copyright 2012, Associated Press