Chrysler announced its expansion of a recent recall to include 695,957 Chrysler Town and Country's and Dodge Grand Caravans.
The recall widened to include 2008 and 2009 models that required repair due to issues with the car's ignition switches.
695,957 minivans were reported to have ignition switches that slipped out of the correct position. The ignition switches reportedly slid out of the "run" to the "accessory", and when this happened, the engine shut down and the air bags deployed. Over the last few months, the company also recalled 196,000 2010 Chrysler Town and Country cars, as well as the Dodge Journey and Dodge Grand Caravan.
USA Today reported that Chrysler had plans to contact the owners of the affected vehicles to instruct them when to take their cars to Chrysler dealers and have them fixed.
Despite these steps, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) remained adamant about Chrysler's way of dealing with the problem.
"While Chrysler's expanded recall ... does not address agency concerns regarding the effectiveness of the remedy, specifically the possibility that the defect may result in non-deployment of the vehicles' air bags," the NHTSA stated.
This month, the Administration announced its plans to conduct investigations on the ignition switch problems of around 1.25 million Chrysler vehicles.
The federal agency conducted an investigation on 700,000 Dodge Journey SUVs and Dodge Grand Caravan models 2008-2010. In addition to that, the agency also looked at the Chrysler Town and Country minivans released in 2008 and 2009 for ignition switch problems.
The NHTSA stated that it received complaints related to the 2010 models of Chrysler. These models were subjected to an early recall fix.
The second investigation of the NHTSA covered around 525,000 Jeep Commanders released in 2006-2007 as well as the 2005-2006 models of Jeep Grand Cherokees.
