December 2, 2016 at 8:54 pm by Clifford Atiyeh | Photography by Michael Simari
Ford is recalling 602,739 cars in the United States to repair seatbelt pretensioners that may fail in a crash, the automaker said Friday.
On the 2013–2016 Fusion and 2013–2015 Lincoln MKZ, the pretensioning system, which cinches the belts extra tight for front-seat passengers during a collision, has cables that may separate. Ford said the high temperatures surrounding the cables during pretensioner deployment, which uses small explosive charges, can cause cable separation and could lead to increased injuries in a crash.
At a later date, dealers will apply a thermal coating on the pretensioner cable anchor to prevent any separation. Ford said it knows of at least two accidents and two injuries related to the defect.
Hyundai’s new Genesis luxury brand may be plowing new ground in the upper reaches of the market, but the Korean company has not forgotten about its budget roots. Case in point: the 2017 Hyundai Accent Value Edition, a new version of the subcompact Accent sedan with a nice load of features for the low, low price of just $17,285.
That’s only $705 more than the base-model Accent SE sedan with a six-speed automatic transmission (the Value Edition doesn’t offer a manual). The small extra outlay adds 16-inch aluminum wheels, Bluetooth connectivity, cruise control, rear disc brakes, steering-wheel audio controls, and an armrest storage box. Not bad for a sub-$18,000 new car, although it’s still missing a backup camera, which isn’t available on any Accent sedan or hatchback regardless of trim level.
If you’re a Luddite who doesn’t need those extra features, the more spartan Accent SE with a six-speed manual can be had for $15,580, while opting for the Accent SE hatchback adds $250 to that total. The Accent hatch also offers a Sport trim level, which has dropped its manual-transmission option for 2017 and now comes only with a six-speed automatic for $18,330.
Hyundai typically adds these sorts of Value Edition packaging deals when a car is reaching the end of its life. So if this new trim level isn’t quite the exciting Accent news you were waiting for, know that a redesigned model should appear within the next year or so.
Toyota is recalling 744,437 Sienna minivans in the United States for sliding doors that may not latch properly and possibly could open while driving, according to filings with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The 2011–2016 Sienna has power sliding doors that, if stopped during operation due to something such as ice blocking the door latch, can overload the electric motor’s circuit, trip the fuse, and prevent the door from being closed entirely. Toyota has received at least nine reports and 390 warranty claims for this problem since January 2014, including for doors that opened while the minivans were in motion, the company said. A total of 1230 cars are in dealer inventory and legally cannot be sold.
Toyota did not specify a repair but will notify owners to bring their vans to dealers in late January. If the problem occurs, a door-open warning light should appear on the dash, and the power sliding function –can be disabled, allowing the door to latch completely.
Not everyone is happy about a recent agreement between car companies and federal regulators that would ensure all new cars are equipped with automated emergency braking systems by 2022.
Ever since the ink dried on the pact in March, consumer advocates have voiced concerns about both the timeframe for adopting this potential life-saving technology and the voluntary nature of the agreement. Their disagreements reached a new level last week, with two organizations and a former chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) filing a lawsuit against that agency in an attempt to spur a formal rulemaking from regulators.
“This year, NHTSA has devoted enormous agency resources to ‘driverless vehicles,’ which are years or even decades away, while a safety system that is ready to start saving lives right now has been relegated to the whims of the auto companies,” said Harvey Rosenfield, founder of Consumer Watchdog and one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers in the case.
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“A safety system that is ready to start saving lives right now has been relegated to the whims of the auto companies.”
– Harvey Rosenfield, Consumer Watchdog
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Safety advocates complain the agreement lacks any enforcement power and continues a pattern of soft oversight from regulators at a time when the auto industry has been afflicted by a series of deadly product defects.
Car companies and federal regulators, on the other hand, hail the voluntary agreement as an example of a new, proactive way of working together. They estimate the voluntary approach will mean AEB will be deployed three years faster than waiting for an official federal rulemaking process to play out.
The litigation is notable for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that a former NHTSA administrator is suing the current one. Joan Claybrook, who served as administrator of the regulatory agency during the Carter administration, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, which lists current administrator Mark Rosekind as a defendant in addition to NHTSA itself.
More broadly, the lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel a ruling on a petition that Consumer Watchdog and the Center for Auto Safety, the two other plaintiffs, presented NHTSA in January. That petition, filed two months before the voluntary agreement was signed, asked NHTSA to start a rulemaking process regarding automated emergency braking. Per federal statute, the agency had 120 days to respond to that petition. But now, six months since that deadline has passed, no response has been forthcoming.
NHTSA officials did not return a request Thursday for comment on the lawsuit.
Automated emergency braking (AEB) systems can prevent crashes or reduce their severity by warning drivers of imminent dangers and automatically applying brakes if motorists don’t take evasive action. Estimates from the agency show that 910,000 crashes per year fit the profiles of the rear-end crashes AEB systems could thwart. An analysis from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that 28,000 crashes and 12,000 injuries will be prevented in the first three years of the voluntary agreement.
The voluntary agreement doesn’t prevent automakers from deploying the technology sooner. Currently, Volvo offers automated emergency braking as a standard feature on its full lineup, and Toyota has pledged to make it a standard feature on nearly every Toyota and Lexus model sold in 2017.
