Aug 01, 2008

Mark Toljagic
Special to the Star


John Meeson's first brush with Canada's vehicle recall program came without warning when one of his tires blew out.

The retired OPP police officer was backing down the driveway of his Tillsonburg home when the front tire exploded with a bang.

It didn't take him long to deduce what had happened to his Ford Taurus wagon: one of the front coil springs had snapped and the resulting shard had dug into his tire.

But like many car owners who try get redress for the defects in their vehicles, Meeson soon learned the hard truth about the differences between the voluntary nature of our federal car ownership protection program and the far tougher rules in the U.S.

Wheels reader Sheldon Einhorn experienced similar frustration with the system after he discovered his 2003 Nissan Altima was burning two litres of motor oil per week.

He had read in the Star that the car's 2.5 L four-cylinder has a known problem with the pre-catalytic converter whose ceramic material can be ingested by the motor, scoring the cylinder walls and severely shortening engine life.

The problem was diagnosed two years earlier in Einhorn's car, which got him a new catalytic converter under the manufacturer's powertrain warranty. But nobody informed him that the engine itself might have been damaged.

Nissan's 2.5 L motor is the subject of Transport Canada recall number 2003060, which stipulates the pre-catalyst will be replaced if it is malfunctioning, and: "the original pre-catalyst will then be inspected for evidence of damage to the catalyst substrate. If damage is present, the vehicle engine will be replaced."

When Einhorn returned to the dealer armed with the recall information, though, he was politely rebuffed. At 187,000 km, Nissan Canada said the engine had far too many kilometres on it to qualify for warranty repairs.

Dissatisfied, Einhorn called Ottawa, hoping the government would use a big stick and coerce the dealer and Nissan into submission. No such luck.

"The Transport Canada agent knew about the recall, he recited it to me, and said they could not enforce it. It's up to Nissan Canada to force the dealership to fix my car."

Alternatively, the government rep gave him the phone number of the Automobile Protection Association, where he could "plead his case."

For his part, Meeson wasn't entirely surprised by what happened to his Taurus. Having owned a 1996 Ford Windstar, he remembered a recall program warning owners about of faulty springs that corroded and frequently broke.

"But my 2002 Taurus has only 64,000 km on it, and I keep it in top mechanical shape," says Meeson.

The local Ford dealer told him his car was out of warranty and his model year wasn't listed on a recall order aimed at earlier model years, so free repairs were not forthcoming. Undaunted, Meeson appealed to Ford's headquarters in Oakville.

"When you go back to the dealer, you may be able to make an arrangement with him," the company rep told him cryptically over the phone, after Meeson raised a fuss.

"They must know there is something wrong with these damn springs, considering it didn't take me five minutes to discover the extent of the problem," he says, referring to his Internet search.

The experience of Meeson and Einhorn may surprise many Canadians who believe automakers are required to make safety recall repairs at no cost to the vehicle owner, regardless of its age and mileage.

Not so, says George Iny, president of the Automobile Protection Association and a vocal consumer rights advocate.

Iny says differing laws between Canada and the United States are part of the confusion. "The law requires only a notice be issued in Canada, which is in contrast to the U.S., where the manufacturer is legally bound to make the repair at no cost to the consumer," he says.

It's an important distinction and one that Canadian motorists, bombarded by U.S. media and information, often miss. They are under the mistaken impression manufacturers are required to fix safety defects here, too.

"No such law in Canada," says Nigel Mortimer, head of recalls at Transport Canada. "A notice of defect is issued and the manufacturer has to notify owners. They don't have to do anything else."

In fact, the manufacturers' responsibility consists of one sentence on the Transport Canada website: "The Motor Vehicle Safety Act requires that vehicle, tire and child restraint manufacturers or importers notify Transport Canada, dealers and the owners of their products about any safety problems."

There's no mention of repairs or any remediation. That's up to the automaker to decide.

In reality, says Mortimer, "99.9 per cent" of recalled vehicles end up being repaired by the participating dealer at no cost to the motorist – but, as the math suggests, it doesn't happen in every instance.

"Given the consumer-driven environment we have, the manufacturers are motivated to provide good customer relations, so they make the repairs at no cost. But they also add provisos, usually related to time and mileage," says Mortimer.

In Meeson's case, Ford conceded some "participation," paying for 60 per cent of the cost of replacing the faulty spring. However, the dealer still charged him for a new strut, strut bearing and the spring on the other side of the car, adding up to just under $500.

In the case of the Taurus, Ford had met with Transport Canada to present new evidence that the failed springs do not represent a safety hazard.

"When a spring breaks and punctures a tire, there's a terrible noise and a lot of flapping rubber, but it doesn't affect the stability of the vehicle," Mortimer says, citing a failure he experienced while driving a General Motors J-car on a test track in the 1980s.

"Ford had concluded that this is not a safety issue, and I'd have to agree," he says. "Every manufacturer has spring failures."

With Transport Canada's approval, Ford moved away from no-cost spring replacement to a "participation" program that offset some of the cost of repairs.

It's happening in the United States as well, judging by the number of disgruntled late-model Taurus owners who have reported paying for their own repairs out of pocket.

While Mortimer says manufacturers have been known to repair vehicles long after the recall notice has been issued, they can be selective – especially when costs mount.

In the case of the Nissan recall, Iny says the company recognizes the defect in the pre-catalytic, but won't take responsibility for the resulting damage to the engine.

"Nissan covers the catalytic converter defect under a recall, but not the eventual consequence, which is an oil-burning engine beginning after 80,000 km," he says.

The news comes too late for Einhorn, who intends to replace the oil-burning engine with a rebuilt motor at his expense, and then sell the car for hopefully more than the $3,500 he has been offered for his five-year-old Altima.

Meeson is astounded that Ford was able to convince the government that broken springs no longer constitute a driving hazard.

"It boggles my mind," he says. "They don't seem to care if people get hurt."

The federal government has recently proposed a Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, with fines of up to $5 million to shore up public confidence.

But there's no mention of revamping Canada's vehicle safety recall system.

Dan McTeague, Liberal consumer affairs critic, says automakers have a fiduciary obligation to honour the recall notices issued by Transport Canada.

"My experience has been that manufacturers have always followed through on a recall order," he says.

"Most companies will err on the side of caution; significant lawsuits are the fear."

With toothless government regulation sadly the norm, legal action is the best course of action, agrees Iny.

"What you need is a class-action lawsuit."

Dan McTeague, Liberal consumer affairs critic, says automakers have a fiduciary obligation to honour the recall notices issued by Transport Canada. "My experience has been that manufacturers have always followed through on a recall order," he says. "Most companies will err on the side of caution; significant lawsuits are the fear."