Safety Consultant Urges Chrysler to Replace Minivan Latches Overseas
10 July 1998
Safety Consultant Urges Chrysler to Replace Minivan Latches OverseasWASHINGTON, 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.