Safety Consultant Urges Chrysler to Replace Minivan Latches Overseas
10 July 1998
Safety Consultant Urges Chrysler to Replace Minivan Latches Overseas WASHINGTON, July 10 -- Chrysler Corporation failed to notify
thousands of European minivan owners of defective rear door latches that it
replaced on millions of minivans that it sold in the U.S. and Canada,
according to Ralph Hoar, an Arlington, Va, safety consultant firm who earlier
pressed Chrysler for the recall in the U.S. Hoar revealed today that between
1989 and 1995 Chrysler Corporation exported to Europe, or manufactured in
Austria, more than 100,000 minivans with defective latches. Chrysler has not
offered to replace defective latches on rear doors of minivans it sold
overseas as it has in the U.S., Hoar said.
"Learning of this, as it seeks to join forces with Chrysler, must be an
embarrassment to Daimler Benz," Hoar said. In 1995, a National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration investigation and the public outcry about
reports of Chrysler minivan latch failures, forced Chrysler to agree to
replace rear door latches on 4.5 million 1984-1995 minivans in the U.S. and
Canada. At that time, NHTSA reported that it knew of 37 deaths associated
with Chrysler minivan rear door latch failures. The agency has not updated
those numbers since July 13, 1995. "NHTSA stopped counting and Chrysler won't
say how many people have been thrown from the rear of Chrysler minivans
because of latch failures," Hoar said.
To illustrate the difference between the old latch and the stronger,
redesigned latch, Ralph Hoar & Associates and German Master Mechanic Dieter
Albrecht of Rottweill, have arranged to remove the original latch from an
Austrian-made 1994 Chrysler minivan owned by Rottweill resident Vera Wolf.
Albrecht will replace the original latch with a stronger, redesigned latch
that Chrysler has made available to U.S. and Canadian minivan owners.
Hoar claims that "documents surfaced during litigation raising questions
about whether Chrysler offered to replace latches on minivans sold overseas.
We've confirmed that latches have not been replaced in Germany and suspect the
same is true elsewhere," Hoar said. Chrysler is believed to have exported
about 60,000 minivans to Germany between 1988 and 1995. Between 1992 and 1995,
Chrysler made more than 130,000 minivans with defective latches in Austria,
Hoar said. "European accident data are not available but there is no reason
to believe that the European experience would differ from that in the U.S."
Hoar said. "Even though Europeans reportedly wear seat belts more often than
American's, German tests and American experience show that seats in these vans
do come loose and can be ejected with the occupant buckled in them," Hoar
added.
In 1994, U.S. Government safety officials confronted Chrysler in a secret
meeting with evidence that Chrysler's minivan latches "contained a defect that
affects children." Ralph Hoar & Associates obtained release of those
documents and films of dramatic NHTSA crash tests in 1995 through a suit filed
under the Freedom of Information Act.
"It is difficult to fathom how Daimler Benz could proceed with its
Chrysler deal until Chrysler offers to provide German owners of Chrysler
minivans the same measure of safety given to minivan owners in the U.S. It is
a mystery how this international oversight could occur in the midst of efforts
to achieve international harmony in vehicle safety," Hoar said.
