A car is built. Some time later somebody admits there is something wrong with it. How long is that gap?
The Canadian register carries the model year in one column and the date of the recall in another. They have sat four columns apart for fifty years. Nobody had subtracted them.
Most faults are found straight away
Across 14,236 recalls the median gap is the same year. Nine in ten arrive within 3 years.
| Gap from model year to recall | Recalls | Share |
|---|---|---|
| same year | 8,403 | 59% |
| 1 to 2 years later | 3,826 | 27% |
| 3 to 5 | 1,282 | 9% |
| 6 to 10 | 605 | 4% |
| more than 10 | 120 | 1% |
That is the reassuring half. A manufacturer usually finds the fault in the cars it is building now, which is what you would hope.
And then there are airbags
One category is not like the others. Airbag faults take a median of 2 years and a ninth decile of 10 years. 64 of the 652 surfaced more than a decade after the car was made.
| What failed | Median | Ninth decile | More than 10 years | Recalls |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airbag | 2 | 10 | 64 | 652 |
| Emissions | 1 | 5 | 0 | 158 |
| Heater And Defroster | 1 | 4 | 0 | 93 |
| High Voltage | 1 | 3 | 0 | 114 |
| Suspension | 0 | 4 | 6 | 700 |
| Engine | 0 | 4 | 6 | 773 |
| Powertrain | 0 | 4 | 4 | 679 |
| Electrical | 0 | 4 | 4 | 1,136 |
| Steering | 0 | 3 | 6 | 869 |
| Other | 0 | 3 | 8 | 1,169 |
| Fuel System | 0 | 3 | 2 | 935 |
| Seats And Restraints | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1,012 |
| Structure | 0 | 3 | 7 | 1,010 |
| Visual System | 0 | 3 | 0 | 353 |
| Not Entered | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1,133 |
| Lights And Instruments | 0 | 2 | 2 | 828 |
Read the top row and the bottom row together. A light or an instrument is found wrong in the year it is built. The thing designed to save your life in a crash takes years longer to be caught, and sometimes more than a decade.
The longest waits in the record
| Recall | Make | What failed | Model year | Recalled | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016180 | MC DISTRIBUTING | Wheels | 1978 | 2016-04-25 | 38 |
| 1986083 | MG | Steering | 1952 | 1986-08-05 | 34 |
| 2024740 | ALTEC | Accessories | 1996 | 2024-12-05 | 28 |
| 2025602 | BMW | Airbag | 2001 | 2025-10-31 | 24 |
| 2020414 | ALTEC | Structure | 1997 | 2020-09-02 | 23 |
| 1995194 | GMC | Lights And Instruments | 1973 | 1995-10-30 | 22 |
| 2021354 | BMW | Airbag | 2000 | 2021-05-27 | 21 |
| 2019601 | BMW | Airbag | 1999 | 2019-11-26 | 20 |
| 2020018 | TOYOTA | Airbag | 2000 | 2020-01-22 | 20 |
| 2020032 | AUDI | Airbag | 2000 | 2020-01-29 | 20 |
| 2019487 | BMW | Airbag | 2000 | 2019-10-03 | 19 |
| 2019600 | BMW | Airbag | 2000 | 2019-11-26 | 19 |
What these numbers are, and are not
A model year is not a build date. A 2020 model can leave the line in 2019, so every figure here is approximate to about a year. That is also why 3,593 recalls in this file are dated before the model year printed on the car. They are counted and then set aside, because a negative wait is not a short wait, it is a different thing.
A recall covers a range of model years. The gap is measured from the newest year it covers, which is the most recent car that could carry the fault. Measuring from the oldest would inflate every number on this page, and inflating is the easier mistake to make and the harder one to notice.
This page corrected itself once already. A sample of two slices of the file said the median was two years and that one recall in fourteen arrived more than a decade late. Read end to end, the register says the median is nought and the long tail is one in a hundred and nineteen. The sample was not the register. We are saying so here because the smaller number was the more flattering one to have found.
Where the numbers come from
- Transport Canada, Vehicle Recalls Database, the full monthly open file, read end to end and re-read weekly.
- 17,829 recalls hold both a model year and a recall date; 14,236 of them give a gap that can be measured.
- The engine reports itself at its status route, including every figure on this page and the full list of long waits.
- The filings belong to Transport Canada. The subtraction, the counting and any mistake in them are ours.
Built 8 September 2026. Corrections go on the corrections page.
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