Aging Parts

Sometimes faulty design causes cars to fail. For example, defective General Motors Co. ignition switches have been linked to 90 deaths. But increasingly, safety advocates worry that aging parts will simply wear out -- and cause accidents -- before a vehicle is consigned to the junkyard.

Congress first put a time limit on recalls in 1974 when lawmakers required automakers to replace or repair for free defective vehicle eight years old or newer. Back then cars typically didn’t last much longer than six years, so not many models were left out. But over the years, the industry built successively better cars, and Americans began to hang onto them longer, especially in hard times. When Congress decided in 2000 automakers should pay for defects going back 10 years, vehicles were nine years old on average, according to IHS Automotive.

This year, about 121 million cars and trucks aren’t covered under existing rules, according to IHS, which predicts that the average vehicle age will rise to 11.9 years by 2019. As such, it may be time to ditch the time limit altogether, said Allan Kam, an auto-safety consultant who spent 25 years at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Time Limit

“Even if you make it 12 or 13 years, there will still be millions of vehicles not covered,” he said. “If equipment is supposed to last the life of the vehicle, it should measure the life of the vehicle.”

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents 12 carmakers including GM, Ford and Toyota, hasn’t taken a position on eliminating the time limit. Nor has NHTSA, but spokesman Gordon Trowbridge said the agency regularly evaluates potential defects of vehicles older than 10 years. He also said existing regulations require automakers to notify NHTSA and consumers if a safety defect exists even if the law doesn’t require a free remedy.

“In many cases, manufacturers have voluntarily or at NHTSA’s request provided free remedies on vehicles older than 10 years,” Trowbridge said.

Shooting Shrapnel

Takata has acknowledged that some of its air bags explode with excessive force, shooting shrapnel that can kill or maim, and prompting automakers to recall millions of vehicles. But Moulton’s attorney said bags exploding with enough force to kill, without generating shrapnel, may be an extension of the existing Takata flaw that’s developing as vehicles age.

Knowing about these accidents in older cars could have tipped off regulators and the public about the problem earlier, saving people’s lives, Dean said. By limiting the database, the knowledge is limited, and so are the hints of problems.

“If you don’t know the life span of a component part, how can you have a cutoff?” Dean said. “Why do you have to have an arbitrary cutoff? Why is that subject to a 10-year limit?”

Moulton, who also injured her right hand so severely that it still doesn’t properly close into a fist, said excluding her vehicle from government records makes no sense.

“I was just making a U-turn in the parking lot and I bumped into the light pole,” said Moulton, estimating she was going less than 20 miles (32 kilometers) per hour. “Everything was like I hit a Mack truck or a bomb went off. The bags just came flying out and there was smoke all in the car.”

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