Articles Posted in Defective Auto Products

Two men were killed in a multi-vehicle freeway accident that started in the northbound lanes of the 15 Freeway in Rancho Cucamonga. The accident was triggered when the left rear tire tread on a Honda sedan separated, according to a news report in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.

The Honda with the blown tire driven by a 41-year-old Long Beach man, then crossed the northbound lanes and struck a Ford E-250 15-passenger van, which in turn spun out, crashed through the guard rail and into a pickup truck. Both the driver of the pickup, 27-year-old Jesus P. Velasco of Pomona, and the driver of the 15-passenger van, Viorel Taru, 49, of Loma Linda, died in this horrible auto accident. The Ford van and the pickup truck were involved in a head-on collision, officials told the Daily Bulletin. Two other vehicles were also involved in a collision.
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A defective 2001 Ford Expedition parked in a homeowner’s carport may have been the cause of a fire in Madison County, Ohio, which killed a woman and her two children, according to an in-depth investigative report in consumer watchdog Web site, Consumeraffairs.com. According to Peter Romans, the man who tragically lost his wife and children in this fire, the fire started in his Ford sport utility vehicle, which was parked in the car port.

The 2001 Ford Expedition, whish is suspected for sparking off this lethal fire, was included in Ford Motor Company’s recall of 9.6 million vehicles said to have been equipped with a defective cruise control switch. These faulty switches could cause a vehicle fire at any time, according to a report by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. The Ford recall, which started nearly three years ago, is still dragging on because of its magnitude and failure on the part of regulators to keep up with it, the article states.

In fact, Consumeraffairs.com has been reporting on this problem for years now, with numerous Web site viewers complaining about their “flaming Fords,” which erupted into flames without warning. Many were able to escape without major injuries, but this family in Ohio wasn’t as fortunate. The vehicles recalled because of the defective cruise control switches spanned 21 vehicle models between the years 1993 and 2003. The article states that about 5 million vehicles have been repaired so far, which leaves 5 million more with the faulty switches, vehicles that are nothing but time bombs waiting to go off at any time.
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Ford Motor Co. is recalling more than 100,000 of its 2008 F-Series trucks because of a flaw in the driver’s seat, consumer watchdog Web site, Consumeraffairs.com reports. Ford officials are saying that the weld connecting the driver’s front seat back with a bracket can crack. Because of this faulty weld, the vehicles do not meet with federal rules for seatback strength, the article said.

The recalls cover F-250 through F-550 Super Duty trucks. There are more than 87,000 of the trucks here in the United States and about 14,000 in Canada with these defective seatbacks. Ford says no injuries have been reported yet because of the defective product. Owners will be notified of the defect later in March.

Seatback defects are serious problems and can cause major injuries or death even in low-speed, rear-end collisions. The mechanics of it are important to understand. When a vehicle is hit from behind, the force of the impact propels the vehicle forward and the occupants are thrown backwards.

Last week, we filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against Nissan Motor Company alleging that the auto maker knowingly designed and manufactured the 2000 Nissan Frontier with defective and unsafe seats and seat backs. Our client, Jaklin Mikhal Romine suffered major injuries after the Frontier’s driver’s seat broke during a rear-end traffic collision in Pasadena, rendering her a paraplegic.

Jaklin was stopped at a red light at the intersection of Corson Street and Lake Avenue when another vehicle hit her truck from behind. The impact of the collision pushed her vehicle into the one in front of her. During the accident, her driver’s seat broke, sent her hurtling backward toward the rear seat cushions. Her seat back collapsed and her head was pushed into the rear passenger compartment causing severe head, neck and spinal injuries.
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Ford Motor Company is recalling more than 400,000 model year 2005 to 2008 Mustangs because the passenger-side airbags may cause neck injuries to small women or large children riding in the seat without being buckled up. According to an article on consumer watchdog Web site Consumeraffairs.com, federal officials informed Ford last year of this problem after conducting a lengthy investigation. Mustang owners are asked to contact Ford at 1-866-436-7332 or the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration at 1-888-327-4236.

Today, we settled a California teenager’s case against General Motors for an undisclosed amount in a product liability lawsuit involving defective quality of glass on the GMC Yukon sport utility vehicle. Our client, Michael (last name omitted), only 16 at the time of the incident lost his left eye after the tempered glass on the passenger side window of the sport utility vehicle shattered inward striking him in the face during a traffic collision. As a part of the settlement terms, General Motors required that the parties keep the amount of the settlement confidential.

The accident occurred July 7, 2006 when the Yukon where Michael was a passenger collided with a Lexus at the intersection of Golden Springs Road and Diamond Bar Boulevard in Diamond Bar. Michael was seated behind the front seat passenger and was properly restrained.

We alleged in the lawsuit that GM, as a cost-cutting measure, used tempered glass in its vehicle everywhere except in the windshield where stronger laminated glass is required as a safety measure. While this move possibly helped the auto maker dig itself out of a financial crunch back in the 1960s, it seriously compromised the safety of consumers. Tempered glass easily shatters upon impact causing people to get ejected on to the roadway resulting in major injuries. This type of glass could also pierce its occupants causing the type of injury that this teenager suffered.
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A product liability lawsuit involving defective seatbelts in Mitsubishi vehicles is going to trial in a Florida court tomorrow against Japanese auto maker, Mitsubishi Motors. According to a Yahoo! article the lawsuit says the seatbelt in a 2001 Montero sport utility vehicle, designed to introduce 10 inches of slack during an auto accident, led to the death of Scott Laliberte, a 25-year-old college student, in a Sept. 24 accident.

Laliberte was actually a passenger in that SUV and wearing his seatbelt. But when the crash occurred, he was ejected from the vehicle through the rear window. His head was crushed against the vehicle and ground when the SUV went out of control and rolled over, the lawsuit states. While his seatbelt was designed to give slack, the driver’s side seatbelt was not made that way. The driver, in this incident, got away with barely a scratch, the article said.

Mitsubishi Motors has consistently been accused of systematically covering up their product defects without issuing recalls in spite of complaints involving numerous accidents, injuries and fatalities. In fact, just this week, the auto maker recalled 7,340 Endeavor SUVs because the right side lower seatbelt anchor may break off during a severe crash.
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Federal auto safety officials have yet again put off updating a controversial standard for vehicle roof strength, according to a news report in the watchdog Web site, Consumeraffairs.com. This one has been a long time coming not only because the existing standard is more than 35 years old, but because of the lives that are lost every year just in rollover crashes, which adds up to more than 10,000 fatalities a year.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) is now asking for more information from auto manufacturers, safety advocates and the public about the proposed new standards. Auto safety advocates such as Joan Claybrook of Public Citizen are asking that auto makers be mandated to do dynamic roof crush testing – which means the rollover testing must be done when the vehicles are moving. But auto makers are saying they want to keep the static test – which is performed when the vehicles are not moving. How many rollover accidents occur when vehicles are not moving? Hopefully, federal officials have asked themselves that question.

Tens of thousands of lives have been lost in passenger car and sport utility vehicle rollover crashes in the United States even as this tug-of-war has been going on for decades. SUV makers such as Ford and General Motors are prime culprits in this because they have been fighting a stronger standard all along. They don’t want to do the dynamic testing or put heavier or stronger roofs because they cost more and push up the price of the vehicles.
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Federal investigators are looking into reports of front passenger seat airbag failures in about 330,000 BMW cars and SUV’s, the consumer watchdog Web site, Consumeraffairs.com reports. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/01/nhtsa_bmw_airbags.html In fact, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Office of Defect Investigation is reporting that the BMW vehicles’ front airbags may be defective rendering them ineffective during a crash.

The models that are part of this investigation include 2004 to 2006 BMW 5 and 7 series sedans, Z4 convertibles and X3 SUVs, as well as 2006 BMW 3 and 6 series cars and X5 SUVs. So far, federal safety regulators have received 729 reports about this malfunction from owner and 23,739 warranty claims for the faulty airbags in these vehicles, the Web site reports.

Readers from all over the country have reported to Consumeraffairs.com about the problem. One person reported that his 2003 BMW 352i got broadsided by a red light runner at 45 mph and the air bags still did not deploy. Another reader says that the air bags didn’t even work in a frontal collision which occurred at a speed of 30 mph. Yet another man reported that his BMW hit a concrete light pole and caused $10,000 in damages to his car and the airbags did not deploy. That reader also complained that BMW is not taking responsibility for the vehicle defects.
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A Georgia jury has awarded $3 million in compensatory damages against Ford Motor Co. in the case of a 76-year-old woman who died after the seat back of her car broke in a rear-end accident. Mary Reese of Augusta, Ga. was driving a Ford Tempo when she was struck from behind by a big truck that was carrying gravel, the article said.

Her car plummeted down a steep embankment. Reese was taken to the hospital with severe spinal and head injuries. She died 23 days later, the article reported. Reese’s adult children filed the product liability lawsuit against Ford alleging that the seatback failure in the Ford Tempo caused their mother’s lethal injuries. The jury awarded compensatory damages, but not punitive damages in this case.

And what do Ford officials have to say about the verdict? They’re going to appeal the $3-million award, according to a spokeswoman. Ford maintained during the trial that the seats were “made to protect front-seat passengers by yielding and absorbing the energy of a rear-end crash.” The company maintained that the intensity and severity of the crash caused Reese’s death, not the car seat.
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