Recall Register

Guides

How recalls work

Three federal agencies run the recall systems on this register, and each keeps a different kind of record. This page describes the process each one follows and how to read its record on this site.

Vehicles, equipment, tires and child seats: NHTSA

Under the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, a manufacturer that determines a vehicle or item of equipment has a safety-related defect or does not comply with a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard must notify NHTSA within five working days by filing a Part 573 Defect and Noncompliance Report (49 CFR Part 573). NHTSA assigns a campaign number such as 24V123000: two digits for the year, a letter for the type (V vehicle, E equipment, T tire, C child seat) and a sequence. The manufacturer then notifies owners by mail and the remedy is performed free of charge by its dealers. Most campaigns are initiated by the manufacturer; some follow an NHTSA investigation, which the "influenced by" field records.

On this site each campaign appears on the page of every make, model and model year it covers, with the defect, consequence and remedy text exactly as the manufacturer filed it. The register holds 26,360 vehicle campaigns and 3,907 equipment, tire and child-seat campaigns.

Complaints and investigations

Anyone can file a vehicle owner's questionnaire with NHTSA. Complaints are consumer reports and have not been verified by NHTSA. The Office of Defects Investigation screens them and may open a preliminary evaluation (PE), then an engineering analysis (EA), which can end in a recall request or be closed. Investigation numbers such as PE24001 carry the type as a prefix.

Consumer products: CPSC

The Consumer Product Safety Commission covers thousands of product types outside vehicles, food, drugs and devices. Under Section 15(b) of the Consumer Product Safety Act, firms must report a product that could create a substantial product hazard. Most recalls are voluntary and announced jointly with the firm through a press release that names the product, the hazard, the number of units, the incidents reported, where it was sold and the remedy: usually a refund, repair or replacement, and sometimes a choice of these. The CPSC record on this site quotes those statements and links to the CPSC page, which carries the images and the consumer contact.

Food, drugs, medical devices and cosmetics: FDA

FDA recalls are almost always voluntary actions by the firm, which FDA then classifies and monitors; FDA can mandate a recall of certain products. FDA publishes each action in its weekly Enforcement Report, with one record per product and a shared event number. Each record carries a class: Class I, a reasonable probability of serious adverse health consequences or death; Class II, temporary or reversible consequences or a remote probability of serious ones; Class III, not likely to cause adverse health consequences. Recall classification reflects the relative degree of health hazard. Status moves from Ongoing to Completed and then Terminated once FDA is satisfied that the product has been removed or corrected. The register groups records into 27,613 events.

Meat, poultry and eggs: FSIS

Recalls of meat, poultry and processed egg products are run by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service and are published at fsis.usda.gov. They are not on this register because that site refuses scripted access.

Reading the record