Recalls after recalls: cars spend more and more time in the workshop | FormulaPassion.it

The latest statistics on recalls carried out by car manufacturers, for breakdowns or for official car repairs, show data that at first sight appear negative. Between 2011 and 2020, a record number of 331 million vehicles have been recalled in one of the reference global markets, the United States, for defects or failures relating to vehicle safety. But even in Europe, things are no better. The recalls would have increased about six times over this time period.

There is something wrong, therefore, in the automotive production chain. With an increase in recalls, worse component quality or excessive complication immediately comes to mind. On the other hand, there may be more aware customers, able to point out errors more (prices have increased, so reliability must be a priority). Furthermore, due to the increase in the importance of reputation, today the houses prefer to recall the vehicles also as a precaution, rather than being caused by immobility.

The Center for Automotive Management (CAM), based in Germany, is the body behind the above statistics. These data helped draw up a research study, which is titled Recall trends of global automotive manufacturers in long-term comparison (2011-2021). The data show that the vehicles recalled in the United States were 30.3 million in 2020, and 18.6 million in the first half of 2021. In Germany, the European reference market, the recalls were 563,000 in 2011, while in 2020 the figure reached over three million.

In addition to the factors mentioned above, there may be other reasons why the recalls have increased so much. For example, speeded up production cycles and high competition led manufacturers to put models on the market that would have required more reliability studies. Furthermore, with the generalized sharing of platforms, a defect can end up cascading on several cars of the same family, even if no direct anomalies are reported. Finally, manufacturers have grown too large and are struggling to control the value chain well. Not to mention the need to save, which leads to the manufacture of low-cost elements.