Defects of Doom ! Recalls and Fireballs ! Horrors on the Highway ! There are fate of things you could call this list , but you ’re alive to call it anything at all because the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ( NHTSA ) was establish in 1970 , and part of its mission was to make producer stop building firebombs on wheel and passing them off on unsuspecting consumers . Some defects are immense but not all that terrifying , like Volkswagen ’s 1972 recall of 3.7 million vehicle work up from 1949 to 1969 because of loose windshield wipers . Um , not that scary . General Motors ' 2014 inflammation permutation recall scandal got sight of pressing . It only affected 2.6 million vehicles , although it was think to be responsible for 13 death . So , kind of scarey .
The 10 items that stay on this list , however , are truly terrify trouble ! Read at your own risk .
10: Toyota’s Unintended Acceleration
Toyota ’s reputation for base hit ( and boring blandness ) was so firmly in place that when its cars started to rush up on their own , terrifying driver and induce 31 deaths , the auto blog Jalopnik tagged it " beige raciness back . " In a scamper to protect its reputation , Toyota tried the ever popular " find fault the victim " maneuver , say people were n’t drive powerful . Then they pick an innocent story mat , release a recall to fix storey mats in 2009 . Really , Toyota ? It at last had to fess up in 2010 and issue a recall for the sticky foot pedal mechanism . In total , 9 million cars were recalled . The incident still haunt the companionship ; in 2014 , Toyota paid a $ 1.2 billion settlement for misleading investigator .
9: Doing the Firestone Flip
In the 1990s , tyre manufacturer Firestone made a carload of defective tires with stride that separated from the brand rap . Ford had the bad fortune ( or sorry judgment ) to fit these tires on their popular Explorer SUV as standard equipment . Now , in the ninety , SUVs were everywhere , and they were very seldom used for either sport or utility . So the unsuspicious driver would be on his way to the mall , like common , and the tyre would blow . The driver , not being an off - road expert in retrieval maneuvers , would jerk the guidance bicycle , and the Explorer would roll over . This lead in about 200 deaths . There were accusations of under - inflating the tires , but in the end , 6.5 million Firestone tyre were recollect , and Ford offered to exchange an additional 13 million tire .
8: Ford’s Cruise Control Conflagration
So , let ’s say you ’re drive along , doo - dee - doo , when you begin to sense something suspicious . " Am I repel past a newspaper pulping works ? " you ask yourself . Or " Is someone burning garbage ? " Before you get a third speculation , your cable car is on fire . Cruise restraint switches built by Texas Instruments ( yes , the same folks responsible for your first fancy calculator ) and used in Ford cars and trucks built between 1991 and 2004 — a total of 14.9 million vehicles — would short - out and catch fire . The exciting part was , you did n’t even have to be using sail control for the fiery playfulness to begin ! And that , booster , is both terrifying and the largest recall in history .
7: GM’s Engine Mount Meltdown
One of the early recalls was a veridical humdinger . The engine riding horse in a mickle of GM auto with big , husky V-8 locomotive engine would give way . In case you ’re not on the button clear on the aim of an railway locomotive backing , it deem the railway locomotive in place inside your car . So when that ’s gone , let the estimable multiplication begin . The railway locomotive would twist under the hood , causing the railway car to speed up when you really did n’t want it to . For maximum fun , the now - curve engine could also stop the bracken assist . And when you brought it into the dealership to repair the situation , the mechanic did n’t really interchange the mounts with something stronger . He just anchored the locomotive to the firewall so when the mounts give out , the engine could n’t move and twist . But hey , the fix only be $ 30 !
6: Audi Pioneers Unintended Acceleration
Toyota made unintended acceleration famous , but Audi was into it way before Toyota . In the eighties , the Audi 5000 was outta here ( even if it did n’t mean to be ) . The driver would shift out of common and architectural plan on easing out of the drive or parking infinite like a unconstipated , well - adjusted human being normally would — and that ’s when the car would take off on its own . And just like Toyota , it take some time to get this one right field . Audi hark back the gondola three time , in 1982 , 1983 , and 1987 , before catch it correct . Or perhaps they just switch in the towel — Audi stopped selling the 5000 in the United States in 1988 . Eh , only 389,102 motorcar were regard by the problem , anyway .
5: Stuck Stones at GM
This recall is most likely to be terrifying to NASCAR driver : In the former 1970s , stones could get deposit between the direction assemblage and the skeleton , preventing the car from turn unexpended . The horror ! While it was mostly inconvenient , and it was even a cheap and easy affair for GM to fix , it was probably more than a little chilling to anyone who suddenly could n’t get the elevator car to do what they asked . The 1973 reminiscence strike 3.7 million vehicles , probably none of which were NASCAR backwash cars . peradventure some current Republican extremity of Congress are still driving these car . You see , they ca n’t go left … oh , never intellect .
4: Ignition Ignites Fords
You ’re in your family , in your layer , sleeping soundly . Your Ford vehicle is in your garage , doing the same , resting peacefully in park . Until the demon - have ignition in your gondola startle itself up , short-circuit out the electrical system and melts the guidance column . If you were favourable , this is what you found the next morning when you headed out to the garage to go forth for oeuvre . If you were n’t lucky , your house had burned down . For real . Ford put this ignition system into 7.9 million vehicles build between 1988 and 1993 , and then did n’t call back them all until 1996 . Amazingly , despite the lag sentence , no one died from this particular mar .
3: Ford Fire Escape
Not all of the scariest defects happened in the regretful sure-enough days . The 2013 Ford Escape had fuel line that were cracking and spill gasoline onto the engine , which , as you may know , is really , really hot . As you may also roll in the hay ( because you ’re not a brick or a leafage or some other brainless matter ) , red-hot gasoline combusts . That mean engine fervor . Luckily , the callback system is firmly in place in the forward-looking geological era , and manufacturer like Ford Motor Company are realizing the value of arrest on top of this stuff and nonsense before it becomes a big sight . Only about 11,500 Escapes needed to be recalled , and no one was hurt .
2: GM Steers You Wrong
You do n’t have to drive for very long before you miss control of the motorcar for the first sentence . Whether it ’s skid across internal-combustion engine or hydroplaning on the main road like a one - net ton jet ski , it ’s like an out of consistence experience . You ca n’t maneuver the car ; you just have to hold on and hope for traction , which you by and large find pretty quickly . That is , unless the out - of - ascendancy situation is due to a dangling deadbolt coming loose and incapacitate the steering column . Traction is n’t kick the bucket to make unnecessary you in that case ; you just have to hope for a gentle landing place . In 1981 , GM recall 5.8 million cars with this government issue .
1: Ford’s Most Famous Fires
When you take care at this tilt , you realize Ford and fire have been fighting it out for tenner . One of the most famous recollection of all time imply the 1971 to 1975 Ford Pinto ( and do n’t forget its friend , the nearly identical Mercury Bobcat ! ) , which was call back in 1978 because the gas tank could rupture in the event of a rear - end hit . That ’s terrifying enough to make this list , but the rightfully terrifying matter was the position of Ford brass at the time . They crunched the numbers and realized it was chintzy to pay settlements to people who were hurt or killed by the defect than it was to redesign the fuel armoured combat vehicle and do a reminiscence to supervene upon it . They probably did n’t calculate in the toll of public outrage in that group meeting .
Lots More Information
When tasked with finding 10 terrific car defects , I learned that there is something like 500 recall every year in recent years . Most of them are really , really , really not terrifying at all . They ’re almost all little fixes ; cheap and light things . Manufacturers have last hear ( though not GM , apparently ) that it ’s a lot easier to bring people and their car into the dealership for a teensy mend - and - replace tactical maneuver than it is to wait for things to go dreadfully incorrect on the main road . Some of the biggest recalls in history were also decidedly unscary , like Honda ’s recall of seatbelt warp , for case . Little pieces would get out off and fall inside the time slot , and then the buckle would get stuck . That seems inconvenient and , maybe at bad , frustrative . Not terrifying . scarcely the clobber of horror movies .
