Morning News

Web Site Lists Auto Recalls

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DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to stick with the technology beat here and now we're talking about recalls that you might get on your car. You're used to getting such notices in the mail, but now there's a different twist.

Here's Ed Garsten in Detroit.

Good morning, Ed.

ED GARSTEN, CNN DETROIT BUREAU CHIEF: Good morning to you, Daryn.

You know, it's amazing that almost a third of the people that get recall notices don't pay any attention to them and you are really putting yourself and your passengers at risk. Because what that means is there's something wrong with your car that is a safety defect that either the government has ordered or that the manufacturer has found out itself that needs to be fixed. And the nice part is it's absolutely free.

Well, the problem is once a vehicle is recalled it could take a couple of months before you get that letter in the mail and meanwhile you're driving around with a possibly unsafe vehicle. Well, a couple of services that'll cut that time down to a matter of days or weeks, this is a brand new one, a service called autobytell.com, It's called "My Garage."

Well, I just put a new car in my garage last week, this Jeep Grand Cherokee, and lo and behold, I find out it says here there are three recalls on that car. Well, all you have to do is click, and it will tell you all the recalls that are on the Jeep Grand Cherokee. The nice part about it is, you don't have to even go to the computer once you sign on, it will send you an e-mail automatically every time there is a new recall on your car.

I've also gone to a government Web site, it's called www.nhtsa.dot.gov. What you do is you click that, say you're shopping around for a car and you want to know if that car has any recall on it and you don't want to sign up. All you do is you put it in. So I'll put in Jeep, if I could spell Jeep, which isn't usually too difficult, Grand Cherokee, year, model year 2000. And submit the query, and right away it will it tell me all the recalls that are outstanding on that vehicle. It's as easy as that. Now we realize that not everybody has access to the Web or wants to fool around with a computer. There is a really good off-line source, the "Automotive News" comes out every Monday. It has lists of recalls in it every week. So make sure you get your taken in if it's been recalled, it's free and it'll keep everybody safe -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Are they on-line too? that newspaper, that magazine you just held up?

GARSTEN: No, automotive news is not on-line, but it does come out every Monday. And a lot of libraries, if you don't care to buy it or it's not available at the news stand, you can get it in your library in a lot of places and just take a peek. And it's probably the best weekly source of up-to-date information on cars and it always has recall information every week.

KAGAN: Thank you, Ed Garsten, in Detroit.

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