Vacation days have been stockpiled. Babysitters have been confirmed. Emergency contact information has been checked, double checked, and checked again. Boarding passes in hand, you've never been more excited for the next 5 hours to sit between the guy who has already had one too many Mai Tais and the kid who doesn't understand the concept of headphones. Nothing is going to spoil your long-awaited Maui Vacation.
But what if the bright green Mustang convertible you're about to hop into is on a recall list? What do you do then? Most rental car companies are pretty good about removing cars from their fleet when they have been recalled. But how can you be sure that the company you are renting with is as fastidious with regulations as they should be? In several states, provisions have been proposed to force rental companies to comply with recalls, but those provisions have failed. The rental car industry has been quite successful in its efforts to make sure that these measures are not passed.
Perform your due diligence. The National Traffic Safety Administration maintains a website called safecar.gov that allows consumers to search for recall information. If the vehicle you want to rent appears on the recall list, ask the rental company if the proper repairs were carried out. They would have detailed information about the fixes. Unfortunately, there is no law that definitively requires rental companies to repair recalled vehicles prior to them being rented. So before booking that sweet drop top, make sure it has not been recalled.
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