TAMPA, Fla. — Drivers across the nation receive recall notices on their cars all the time, but some of those urgent recalls never reach drivers until it's too late, with many drivers barely avoiding disaster.
Sunny Farley credited fellow drivers with saving her life the night her Kia SUV caught fire as she drove down a Texas highway last November.
“One of the guys said yeah, the car is on fire. It's on fire. He got me out of the car,” Farley recalled.
Farley said flames engulfed the car moments after she escaped.
“It just happened so unbelievably quickly," Farley said. "And my door was still open when the car blew up.”
The ABC Action News I-Team found Kia issued an urgent recall on Farley’s 2016 Sorento for a fire-related defect in September. But the recall notice didn't go out until November 11th. Farleys' vehicle burst into flames 11 days later. Farley said she never got the notice.
“We've never seen anything in the mail or online or been alerted to anything in terms of Kia,” Farley said of the urgent recall.
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Multiple owners told the I-team they also did not get a recall notice until it was too late.
Christine McGuire-Wolfe had just dropped off her boys when the engine in her Kia SUV caught fire with her behind the wheel.
“I don't think I can accurately describe how quickly it went up. It wasn't like this smoldering fire that took some time to catch," she said. "It went up almost instantly.”
In McGuire-Wolfe’s case, the recall notice for her vehicle arrived in the mail days after the fire.
“I don’t think there’s a sufficient effort to get that information out there," she said.
For more than half a century, the government required automakers to notify owners of safety recalls by mail only. The 55-year-old rule has never been updated.
NHTSA started work on a new rule that would require manufacturers to issue "…notification by electronic means in addition to notification by first class mail" such as emails or text messages. Seven years after that work started, the rule still isn't finalized.
A NHTSA spokesperson told the I-Team they would be working on changes to the rule-based public comments that were submitted to the agency. The agency provided a list of communications initiatives related to enhancing recall completion rates.
- Paid campaigns (national recalls campaign, geo-targeted air bags campaign, and search words campaign for general recalls and airbags).
- NHTSA highlights recall messaging twice a year around Daylight Savings – Spring dedicates Vehicle Safety Recalls Week, which includes press releases, increased social media posts, and national radio media tours.
- NHTSA also updated its website to provide auto manufacturers with best practices to increase recall completion - Tips for Increasing Recall Completion Rates | NHTSA [gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com].
Automakers may voluntarily contact owners electronically, but many do not.
