Since the beginning of this year, the information on car recalls has been inexhaustible, and its quantity and frequency have greatly exceeded those of previous years. The data shows that in the first half of this year, the total number of vehicles recalled in the world was about 36.4 million, and the number of recalls of GM and Toyota reached 10 million. In particular, GM has recalled 44 batches in the first half of the year, and the total number of recalled vehicles has reached 29 million, exceeding the sales volume of the Chinese auto market for one year. On average, two recalls are performed almost every week. Become a well-deserved "recalling king." The voluntary recall of quality vehicles by auto companies has won a lot of applause in the early stage and is considered to be the embodiment of the responsibility of car companies. However, under the frequent and large amount of recall information “bombing”, the consumer’s mentality has changed. “With such a frequent recall, can the quality of this car be credible?”
A few days ago, GM once again announced a recall to expand the range of vehicles that could be killed due to possible dead-end ignition switch defects to some older models, and will recall 8.23 ​​million compact and mid-size cars. GM has recalled 29 million vehicles since 2014, more than half of which, about 14.7 million, are due to defective ignition switches.
In the first half of this year, Toyota recalled approximately 10.96 million vehicles worldwide. After a large-scale recall of 1.9 million Prius in February this year, Toyota announced on April 9 that it had recalled about 6.39 million vehicles (60,000 in China) due to five problems, such as steering gear and seats. Toyota recalled the second in history. On June 11, Toyota Motor Corporation filed a declaration with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. Due to defects in the airbag system, it may explode or cause a fire at the start-up. Toyota recalled more than 2.27 million vehicles worldwide.
The automobile recall system is a treatment method for the batch problem of the products caused by the automobile enterprises. It is a product of the development of the automobile industry to a certain stage, and is a mature performance of the industry. With the rapid development of the automobile industry, the relevant laws and regulations are gradually improved. The recall is moving towards normalization. Car companies and consumers no longer regard the recall as a disgraceful thing, but the performance of the car company. However, for consumers, occasional, moderate recalls can be seen as a manifestation of car ownership. If there is always a problem with the recall, the people have to question their product supervision system. In the recalls over the years, we also found that some of the products involved in the recall of different companies actually came from the same problem.
Frequent recalls will not actually win more positive reviews, but will hurt the brand influence of the company. In fact, as early as 2010, the Toyota "pedal door" incident had been raging. In this incident, Toyota recalled nearly 10 million cars. After the incident, a survey showed that the brand influence of the Toyota brand in the minds of consumers has dropped significantly, and has dropped from the first place before the recall to the fifth place. Although Toyota did not recall a large area in the Chinese market, it also affected Toyota's sales in the Chinese market and even the market performance of the entire Japanese car. In less than a month, Toyota's hot-selling car has gone through the twists and turns of the fare increase to price cuts.
It can be seen that most of the recalls are due to the existence of some hidden dangers in the products, and the remedial measures taken by the car companies to prevent them from happening. The focus is on prevention, not on the cure for product defects. In order to fundamentally solve the problem of product defects, it is still necessary to improve the design and technical level and strictly control the quality.