How to Stay on Top of Recalls

If you watch the news, read a newspaper, or keep your eyes on social media, you will undoubtedly hear of the many vehicle recalls that regularly occur across the country. There are so many, in fact, that it can be hard to keep up with the recalls that might be adversely affecting your vehicle. In this article, we are going to walk you through a really great tool that was made by Transport Canada to help Canadians stay informed about vehicle recalls and advisory warnings for child seats, tires, and other safety equipment.

For the sake of this article, we will use a running example.  Here is how a family with a young child that owns a 2006 Honda Civic Sedan would use the Defect Investigations and Recalls website to get free repairs of all of the recalls on their vehicle and register their child seats with the manufacturer to get regular safety updates.

First, you check the database

The first thing to do is very simple. You would check the Motor Vehicle Safety Recalls Database to see if your vehicle, child car seat, or tires have been subject to a recall. You choose from the dropdown menu to find the make and model of the product you want to investigate. In this case, you would choose “Honda” as your make, and “Civic” as the model, followed by “2006” in both of the columns for the year to narrow your search. After you perform your search, you will see that this vehicle model has six recalls, including issues with steering, lights and instruments, airbags, and visual systems. You can click on each to get an in-depth description of the problem with information on how to get a free repair.

Next, you go to the manufacturer

The next step is to find the recall section of the manufacturer’s website. This is easy because Transport Canada has them all organized and linked for you right here. When you follow the link, in this case for the Honda Recall Product Lookup, you can put your VIN number into their website to get a list of recalls that they can repair for you and who to call to make your appointment. They also have images of where to find your VIN# in case you have any trouble finding it.

Last step, registration of equipment

This one might be the most important step after you have your recall repair scheduled. The best safety is preventative, and getting out in front of product recalls keeps getting easier. Our example family would click this link to register their child seat with the manufacturer to receive recall information directly to their email. Then they would follow this link to register their tires with their manufacturer to make sure they are informed of any safety issues before they can become a problem.

Breathe Easy

With all of your recalls repaired and with your safety equipment registered against future recalls, you can breathe easy and rest assured that you are way out in front of any potential safety concerns. If you have any questions, we would love to hear from you. Just send us a note and we will get back to you right away.