If you own one of over one million Chrysler or Honda vehicles currently being investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, you may want to continue reading or risk being left in the dark.
After receiving 114 complaints, NHTSA has now officially upgraded its investigation into approximately 431,000 examples of Honda’s popular CR-V small crossover. Simultaneously, NHTSA is also looking into 622,817 examples of Chrysler and Dodge minivans for a similar headlight failure-related problem.
The Honda CR-Vs in question are model year 2002 through 2004, and according the safety agency. The problem is that both headlights can simultaneously stop working without warning, leaving drivers with the dangerous choice of having either no headlights or having to wait to be towed on the side of whatever road they were traveling on when the problem occurred.
So far, no crashes have been reported as a result of the failures.
Unrelated in a manufacturing sense, but related by topic, Chrysler is also facing scrutiny from the safety organization as 622,817 model year 2005 Town and Country, Voyager, Dodge Caravan and Dodge Grand Caravan vehicles have also been experiencing headlight failure. This large group of affected vehicles has resulted in some 14,208 warranty claims and over 1,500 complaints filed with NHTSA.
With the Chrysler and Dodge vehicles drivers report that high-beams remain functional, but the failure of the low-beams usually occurs when in motion. Two drivers have alleged crashes as a result of the failures, but those reports have not yet been corroborated by the automaker.
Neither investigation has been upgraded to a mandatory recall at this time.
References
1.’NHTSA furthers…’ view
