Wow, silly us. On December 15, 2015, to illustrate what corporate vermin CarMax was for selling defective used cars that are under safety recall, we contrasted CarMax with its competitor, Auto Nation. Auto Nation, you see, had announced it would do the right thing and voluntarily stop selling “any new or used vehicles under recall that have not been repaired.” Here are the kinds of problems these cars had:
- Catching on fire
- Wheels that fall off
- Exploding Takata airbags that spew shrapnel into the passenger compartment, causing blindness or
- GM ignition switch defect that causes loss of power steering and braking, and airbag failures to inflate when needed in a crash
- Faulty brakes
- Sticking accelerator pedals
Oh, that was so 2015.
In 2016, as a direct response to Trump’s election, Auto Nation did a complete 180, re-joining the ranks of lowlife CarMax. Here'a what Consumer Affairs wrote:
Does Donald Trump care about highway safety? AutoNation is betting he doesn't. The new-car chain has backed down on its pledge to fix all outstanding recalls before selling cars to customers, apparently based on an assumption that Trump will not pursue the matter.
AutoNation started selling used vehicles with open recalls on Monday, Nov. 28, after CEO Mike Jackson concluded that Trump's victory would mean the end of legislative efforts to require used car dealers to stop selling recalled used cars that have not been repaired.
U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) do have legislation to fix this problem, called the Used Car Safety Recall Repair Act. But while the rest of us wait for a new Congress and White House, leading auto safety organizations aren’t waiting. They have sued in court. Specifically, they have sued the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for allowing “GM, CarMax, and the Lithia, Koons, West-Herr and Asbury auto dealership chains … to advertise that unsafe used cars with unrepaired safety recall defects are ‘safe,’ ‘repaired for safety,’ passed a ‘rigorous inspection’ and qualify to be sold as ‘certified’ if they merely disclose that the vehicles ‘may’ have an ‘open safety recall.’” The groups were just granted the right to present August 16 oral arguments in the case, which is great news.
Meanwhile, state auto dealer lobbyists have been on a tear, with proposed bills around the country to affirmatively allow dealers to sell these unsafe, defective cars. So far, bills were defeated in New Jersey, California, Maryland, and Virginia. But they are popping up again. In New York, for example, both the Center for Auto Safety and NYPIRG are pushing back hard against Assembly (A.)8268 and Senate (S.)7545 bills, which NYPIRG says,
[W]ould enshrine in statute the right to sell dangerous products and provide legal immunity to sellers when the defective cars they sell cause serious injuries and even death due to known defects, like problems with brakes, airbags, restraint systems and steering. … Not only would this legislation shift the entire burden for repairing car safety defects to purchasers, but it likely means that the sale price would not reflect the dollar value of the car with the defect—meaning consumers will overpay for defective used cars and assume the risk of repairs. Used car dealers should fix cars with safety defects before selling them to protect buyers, passengers, pedestrians, other drivers and property. That’s just common sense and marketplace fairness.
Similarly, the Center for Auto Safety wrote,
Despite the significant dangers presented by recalled vehicles, these bills include a provision allowing dealers to sell used cars with unrepaired recalls. The bills do not require the recalls be fixed, no matter how deadly, but merely that a consumer be notified about the unrepaired defect instead of fixing it. Why would any state encourage such behavior?
I don’t know, but unfortunately, Tennessee just did. Nevertheless it’s still the only state in the nation to have done so. Let’s just hope others don’t follow.
Gotta LOVE the Pop Tort -- Awesome reporting, as always.
Posted by: Rosemary Shahan | June 18, 2018 at 03:02 PM