For those who don’t read up on news about their car online can at least hope to get something in the mail regarding a recall for their vehicle. But that takes time and sometimes recalls can be a matter of life and death, as it was in the case of the Takata airbag fiasco that affected Toyota, Ford, BMW, and more than a dozen other manufacturers (rendering more than 42 million cars unsafe to drive). Luckily, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration just released a free app that makes figuring out recalls easier than ever.
SaferCar will keep track of all your cars and alert you when a recall has popped up for one of them. Using the app is as simple as downloading it either the Apple AppStore or the Google Play Store, entering the cars you own (you can go either by year, make, and model or enter the VIN), and adding them to your “virtual garage.”
After that the app will notify you of any open recalls as soon as they happen—or it will tell you if there’s one that’s currently active. If you’re a proactive car owner you can also use the app to report faults that you find in your car that you think might need the NHTSA’s attention.
The app sounds like a great way to take a lot of potential worry out of owning a car. It must be said, however, that as of this writing the app is a little buggy and in need of some refinement—something that we hope will be sorted out soon. Bugs aside, it’s no doubt worth a spot on your phone.
