Switzerland Car Recall Risks: Defects in New Cars and Recalls Exceed Redemptions

2024-03-06 18:36:32

Published6. March 2024, 7:36 p.m

Risk of injury: Defects in new cars: More recalls than redemptions in Switzerland

Last year, car manufacturers repeatedly had to take vehicles out of circulation due to technical defects. In Switzerland, 380,000 new cars were affected last year.

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Car recalls: That’s what it’s all about

In 2023, more new cars were recalled in Switzerland than were redeemed.
380,000 vehicles were affected by recall campaigns.
The most common cause of recalls was a leaky exhaust gas recirculation cooler.

At the end of 2023, Opel had to recall almost 1,500 electric cars worldwide. Because of a mistake, there was a risk that the cars would reverse unintentionally. And just recently, Mercedes had to take 250,000 vehicles out of circulation worldwide due to the risk of fire. 2,500 of them in Switzerland.

This is not uncommon, like one Report from the “Tages-Anzeiger” can be seen. Over 380,000 new cars had to be recalled in 2023. That is around 90,000 more than in 2022, as the Federal Roads Office Astra confirms.

This means that in 2023 more new cars were affected by a recall than were redeemed. 256,000 new cars were registered last year.

Technical defects

The most common cause of recalls was a leaky exhaust gas recirculation cooler. According to “Tages-Anzeiger”, 79,000 vehicles across Switzerland were affected.

According to the Astra, it’s not just environmental or safety-related defects, there’s also an increase in comfort components. For example, with seat or exterior mirror heating.

Mercedes leads the rankings

Most of the recall campaigns in Europe were caused by Mercedes-Benz: the German manufacturer had to withdraw its vehicles from circulation 38 times. Other German car manufacturers in the ranking are BMW (22), Opel (21) and Volkswagen (11).

Statistics show that ten car manufacturers account for around a third of all recalls. The most common risks for the affected vehicles are environmental damage, injury or fire.