According to ABC News, “for the second time the 2012 Ford Focus tops an auto safety watch list amid complaints and reports of injury surrounding the vehicle’s steering.”
What Is the Vehicle Watch List?
The Safety Institute (TSI) is a non-profit auto safety group that compiles a quarterly report on the top 15 vehicle trends that safety experts say automakers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) should pay attention to. This report is called the Vehicle Watch List (VWL).
The list uses publicly available data from the NHTSA. The data has everything from consumer complaints to crash and defect statistics.
In the VWL’s June quarterly report, the 2012 Ford Focus was listed in the top spot for issues relating to its steering. In the quarterly report released in early October, the Focus is number one for the same reason.
In a complaint filed with the NHTSA, one consumer wrote, “Power steering sporadically comes in and out—usually when the car is just started and we attempt to back out—the steering has no power. If this happens while driving at a higher speed—this could be bad.”
The TSI stresses the point that the VWL is not a list of defects but issues that could be potential problems. The non-profit encourages the government and automakers to investigate to see if this is a problem.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/US/2012-ford-focus-steering-tops-list-vehicle-issues/story?id=25915357