Vendor Bender

Supplier performance was mixed in 2001, despite an overall quality resurgence, suggests a new report on safety recalls.

While supplier gaffes are linked to fewer recalls than the previous year, the number of potentially affected vehicles rose by more than 32%, according to a Ward's analysis of the 205-page report.

This despite a 16% drop in the total number of recalls.

Compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Admin., the document is the agency's annual report on recalls of motor vehicles and equipment. Delayed several months by NHTSA's transition to an upgraded computer system, the report is headed for the printer. Ward's got an advance copy.

Including campaigns affecting medium- and heavy-duty trucks, buses, niche vehicles, motorcycles and trailers, NHTSA recorded 448 recalls in 2001. This compares favorably with 2000, when the count was 533.

The campaigns of 2001 affected 13.3 million vehicles, the lowest total since 1994 when 244 campaigns had the potential to affect just over 6 million vehicles. The 2001 vehicle count is a whopping 45% lower than 2000's total of 24.3 million.

Had suppliers kept pace, however, NHTSA's 2001 retrospective would seem rosier.

Recalls involving supplier slip-ups totaled 35, which compares favorably with 2000's count of 53. But the number of potentially affected units swelled to more than 4.9 million from 3.3 million.

Inflating 2001's count are the year's two most notorious recalls — a 1.3 million-unit campaign to inspect/replace a faulty seatbelt buckle, and a 1 million-unit campaign to address a wiper-motor-switch malfunction. Ford Motor Co. bore the brunt in both cases.

The report links 57 recall campaigns to OEM assembly errors and/or vehicle design flaws. But the number of vehicles implicated by these recalls is 3.5 million — 1.4 million less than the supplier total. Detroit's Big Three made big gains.