Chrysler Jeep Recall – FCA Delivers Information to NHTSA

Dear Care for Crash Victims Community Members:

“The release of information comes ahead of a July 2nd public hearing, also demanded by NHTSA, during which federal safety regulators, representatives of the automaker and members of the public will be allowed to testify about FCA’s performance in each of the recalls — a performance that has already drawn less than stellar reviews.

NHTSA has complained that FCA’s recall completion rates have been too low, in one case only 4 percent of recalled vehicles had been repaired after the recall had been in effect for nearly two years. Fiat Chrysler even admitted in a letter to its dealerships that certain recall completion rates had not met expectations.

“It is not enough to identify defects,” said NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind. “Manufacturers have to fix them.”

His agency has expressed substantial concerns about the “significant safety hazards posed to consumers” in connection with Fiat Chrysler’s execution of its recalls. Automobile safety advocates go even further.

“People are dying and Chrysler is stalling,” said Clarence Ditlow, Executive Director of the Center for Auto Safety….”  

“NHTSA should impose the maximum possible civil fine under the law,” said Ditlow. “The Justice Department should prosecute Chrysler and its responsible executives for criminal homicide for any deaths due to the delay in carrying out this recall.”

Before the Jeep recalls were issued, government figures put the death toll from fires in rear impact collisions at more than 50 people. The family of one victim, 4-year-old Remington Walden, sued Chrysler. In April, a Georgia jury ruled against the car company, awarding Walden’s family $150 million. Shortly thereafter, Chrysler filed a motion appealing the verdict. The automaker maintains that the vehicles are not defective and that they met all safety standards in place when they were produced.

Walden family attorney, Jim Butler, disagrees. He alleges Chrysler knew for years there was a problem with the rear fuel tanks on older model Jeeps. He says the company also knew trailer-hitches, the fix covered under the recall, wouldn’t protect the gas tanks.

“The real issue is not FCA’s dawdling on making the so-called ‘repair’; the real issue is the proposed ‘repair’ is a total fraud,” Butler said pointing, as proof, to a deposition from one of Chrysler’s own engineers saying a trailer-hitch would not protect the gas tank on the affected Jeep models.”  Seehttp://www.cbsnews.com/news/fiat-chrysler-answers-criticism-surrounding-handling-of-recalls/