Why Chrysler Said “No Thanks” to NHTSA’s Request to Recall 2.7 Million Jeeps

The word voluntary is subject to lots of abuse. "Here's a voluntary reading list," your high school teacher or college professor might say a few months before putting said material on a final exam. Your boss e-mailed about a voluntary 7:00 a.m meeting tomorrow? Better stop for coffee on the way. So it goes with NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which under virtually all circumstances politely nudges automakers into enacting voluntary recalls if the agency feels there's a safety risk. When nudges fail, NHTSA sends Recall Requests, laying out its case. Chrysler received one such letter this week for Grand Cherokees made between 1993 and 2004 and Jeep Libertys from 2002 to 2007. Chrysler's response? A press release best summarized as "Nope." At issue is NHTSA's claim that the older versions of the Grand Cherokee and Liberty, which had their fuel tanks installed behind the rear axle, are particularly prone to fires and fuel leaks in rear-end collisions. Chrysler disagrees. Both sides agree that Chrysler met the crash standards for the era, but a recall also can be ordered when a safety defect is found and makes the vehicle unreasonably unsafe. Chrysler and NHTSA take different approaches to analyzing historic crash, fire, and fatality data, collected by both sides during a three-year investigation. Yep, it's about statistics. Yesterday, we spoke with Clarence Ditlow, head of the Center for Automotive Safety, the nonprofit that petitioned NHTSA to take on this topic in 2009; NHTSA granted the petition in August 2010. Ditlow feels that Chrysler is unreasonably limiting its comparisons, looking only at the numbers of fatalities without talking about the frequency with which rear-collision fatalities involved fire. In fact, a slide from a Chrysler presentation made in 2011 to NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation seems to demonstrate Ditlow's point—and undercut Chrysler's current case. Chrysler's slide, pictured below, shows the Grand Cherokee has been involved in rear impacts with fatalities in which fire was the "most hazardous event" more than twice as frequently as its next closest competitors. (You can ignore the Honda Passport, since so few were sold and there was only one incident reported, making it statistically insignificant.) There's more data, but it's soporific, and what happens next is more exciting. The procedural next step is for Chrysler to file an official reply with the government during the next two weeks. After that, NHTSA will make a preliminary determination about whether the Jeeps in question are defective, then hold a public hearing—at which Chrysler can make its case—and then the NHTSA administrator makes a final decision. If Chrysler wants to appeal, it's off to federal district court they go. Since the recall process was instituted, argued about, and finally settled in the late 1970s, there have been only a tiny number of automaker challenges to a NHTSA request. The last was in 1996, when Chrysler refused to recall certain vehicles that NHTSA said didn't comply with certain testing requirements. Chrysler said it was never given specifics on those tests, told the government to kiss off, and the two wound up in federal court to resolve the matter. With then-lawyer-and-current-chief-justice-of-the-Supreme-Court John Roberts arguing its case, Chrysler won. It's possible, of course, that Chrysler really believes the data show these older Jeeps to be as safe as their contemporaries, and doesn't want to be forced into an exorbitant recall. Trying to retrofit protection to a gas tank that hangs out near the back of the truck would be insanely expensive and complicated. Regardless, the degree of WTF to Chrysler's behavior here is shocking. Does Chrysler really think a long, public battle—even the BBC World Service has picked up this story—is cheaper than a recall? Even if Chrysler wins in the end, it loses. GM fought NHTSA in court regarding its X-cars in the early 1980s, and while GM won, analysts considered the case to be a PR nightmare. Why did Chrysler respond to the recall request by putting out a press release and calling even more attention to its refusal? NHTSA is planning to release a response in the next day or so, which may include further explanation of its position. In the meantime, given the public attention that its refusal has received so far, we have to believe that executives in Auburn Hills are rethinking their position. from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com

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