Recaro Recalls Child Seats

The recall seemed to be straightforward enough: Recaro Child Safety needed to fix some of its car seats so they would not break free during a crash. But the path to that announcement, made last week, was anything but. After more than 18 months of resistance by Recaro, about 173,000 child seats are being recalled, illustrating how long and fraught the recall process can become. The case follows another wide-ranging child seat recall, for models made by Graco Children’s Products, that was also fought by its company.

The Recaro safety problem was discovered by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in late 2013 and early 2014 during routine crash tests to check compliance with federal safety standards. The agency found what it considered to be a serious problem: A part that helps keep the top of the child seat secure could break during a crash, allowing the top of the seat to fly forward.

Federal regulators said this violated a federal safety standard and required a recall. The company did not agree. In November 2014 Recaro filed a formal petition with regulators arguing that a recall was not required because there was not a serious safety problem. One argument focused on the size of the dummy used during testing — the equivalent of a 6-year-old child. Recaro said its owner’s manual warned against relying on the child seat’s tether strap, which broke during testing, for children weighing more than 23kg. For heavier children, the vehicle’s seatbelt should be used, Recaro said.

The tether strap goes from the top of the child seat over the back of the car’s rear seat, latching onto an anchoring point in the car. It is intended keep the top of the seat from flying forward in a crash. A different strap secures the bottom of the child seat to the vehicle. The company also said having the part of the seat that holds the tether strap break away was not necessarily a bad thing.

“Technology has shown repeatedly that collapse, breakage and crumpling of material minimizes energy and increases the rate of survival for the occupant in the event of a collision” by helping reduce the harmful impact, the company told regulators. Recaro said that it had no reports from owners of such failures and that the problem was that regulators were using outdated equipment for the tests.

But regulators were not persuaded, saying in July that advice in the owner’s manual did not replace the need to meet federal safety standards. The regulators also rejected Recaro’s assertion that having part of the seat break away could, in theory, be beneficial. Finally, last week, Recaro changed its position. The details of the recall were posted last week on the NHTSA’s website. In a statement, Recaro’s president, John Riedl, said the company was focusing on safety and protection in recalling the child seats.

“That’s why even though there have been no reported incidents in the field, we are acting quickly,” he said, with what Recaro called a voluntary product recall. One model being recalled is the Recaro Performance Ride manufactured between Jan. 15, 2013, and June 9, 2015. The other is the Recaro ProRide manufactured between April 9, 2010, and June 9, 2015.

The recall affects only seats sold in the United States, Kinsey Johnson, a Recaro spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview. Recaro’s arguments were criticised by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, an alliance of consumer, medical, public health and safety groups and insurance companies. Recaro was trying to avoid an expensive recall, said Henry Jasny, the vice president and general counsel of the safety group, in a telephone interview.

“People assume that their children are going to be safer and safe when they are in child seats,” he said. Recaro did not respond to Jasny’s remarks and declined to make an official available for an interview. Owners who have registered their car seats should receive a recall letter and those who have not can check the Recaro website. The company said it would send owners a kit with a new strap and installation instructions.

-NYTimes.com