With Toyota announcing its third official recall, many people are wondering what they should do if they own one of the vehicles that might be included in the recall. Press announcements can be confusing and may appear to cover more or less vehicles than are actually the object of the recall. As the list of recalled vehicles continues to grow, the first thing you need to do is check to see if your specific vehicle is among the millions that have been recalled.
The easiest way to check to see if your vehicle has been recalled is to go to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) website at http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/recalls. There, you can input detailed information regarding your vehicle and it will tell you whether or not your vehicle is included in one of the many recalls. Once you have determined that your vehicle has been recalled the best thing you can do is to stop driving the vehicle and contact your dealer as soon as possible. Although officials were initialing advising owners that they could continue to drive the vehicles listed on the second recall, they quickly retracted that advice after much public outcry over the potential safety hazards of continued driving. Once a vehicle has been recalled, the manufacturer is required to correct the defective part or system free of charge to the owner. That was part of the problem with the second recall. The manufacturer didn’t have a plan in place to repair the defect at the time the recall was announced. Common sense, however, would warn against operating a vehicle that has been determined to have a defective part or system.
If you have already been involved in an accident in the vehicle that has been recalled, then your best course of action is to contact an experienced California product liability and personal injury attorney immediately. If the defective part was the cause, or a contributing factor, to the accident, then there may be additional measures that you need to take in order to protect any claim you may have against the manufacturer. You attorney may advise you to get expert opinions and/or reports on your vehicle to be used in any future litigation before you take the vehicle to the dealer to have the defective part repaired or replaced. There may also be additional steps necessary to preserve you claim that only an experienced attorney can advise you of. Both personal injury law and product liability law are complex areas of the law and can be very difficult to navigate. While a manufacturer that produces a defective product can be, and should be, held liable for any damages suffered as a result of that defect, you need an experienced California attorney on your side to guide you through the process of your claim.
If you would like an experienced attorney to evaluate your case, contact the law offices of Ledger & Associates at 1-800-300-0001 or visit us at www.ledgerlaw.com.
