Re: Feds Urge Dodge to Make Recall for Ball Joints

From: Bill Pitz (dakota@billpitz.com)
Date: Sat Dec 11 2004 - 02:51:36 EST


andy levy wrote:
> | I'm glad that they are finally admitting to the problem. I suspect they
> | will probably end up recalling more vehicles now that they have admitted
> | publicly that there is definitely a problem.
>
> I doubt DC thinks they're "admitting" to anything, they're just
> appeasing the NHSTA and the very few people who've spoken out.

In the article earlier today, the DC rep was specifically quoted as
admitting that there was a problem with the ball joints but that they
didn't view it as a major safety concern. To me, that's an admission
that there is a problem which is going to make any potential lawsuits
down the road a whole lot easier for whoever decides to sue them over it.

> | I wonder how long it will be before I can get this done. I'm calling my
> | dealer on Monday...
>
> Good luck! Last time I tried to get a recall done pre-emptively, the
> dealer wouldn't talk to me about it until I had the letter from Dodge in
> my hands.

Really? My dealer has always been really good about taking care of
things as soon as they aware of any issue. We'll see. Now that this is
public, I'm sure there will be a lot of angry customers demanding the
problem be corrected.

> On one hand, I can understand - if you're having supply chain issues,
> then sending out recall letters at a pace they can be fulfilled makes
> sense, rather than getting crushed by demand you can't meet. OTOH, this
> is a dangerous problem, and they should be taking care of it as fast as
> the trucks come in the door.

Yeah. The ball joints are out there (they've definitely known about
this for a while, since the feds and DC have both been conducting their
own "investigations... and I'm sure that both predicted this would
happen -- they're not usually stupid about things like this) and they
need to eat the cost of pushing them through the supply chain as quickly
as possible to cover their asses.

Well, we'll see what happens. I'm curious to see a.) what they replace
the ball joints with and b.) what my current (58,000 miles) ball joints
look like. They were still tight last time I had them checked, so I'm
hoping to be able to identify if my oem joints came from that plant in
Indiana that supposedly was cranking out the "bad" ones. I'm really
surprised that I haven't had to replace them yet -- our roads here are
REALLY bad. Lots and lots of potholes, unmaintained railroad crossings,
etc. and I've done my share of wheeling in the truck too.

-Bill



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