Interpretation ID: nht79-4.16

DATE: 05/09/79

FROM: STEPHEN P. WOOD FOR FRANK BERNDT, NHTSA

TO: Management Consulting in Product Assurances

TITLE: FMVSR INTERPRETATION

TEXT: This responds to your April 9, 1979, letter asking how the agency will apply the reporting requirements of Part 573, Defect and Noncompliance Reports, to equipment manufacturers.

As the agency indicated in the preamble to the final rule, replacement equipment manufacturers that are required to notify owners and to remedy defective or noncomplying equipment would do so to the best of their abilities. The reporting requirement does not require them to manufacture their equipment so that it is easily identifiable nor does it require them to maintain lists of persons to whom equipment has been sold. Some equipment manufacturers may wish to upgrade their recordkeeping and identification systems to facilitate their statutory obligations to recall and remedy, but the reporting regulation does not require this.

With respect to the "flasher" incident to which you refer in your letter, if a vehicle manufacturer authorizes the use of incorrect flashers in its vehicles, problems resulting from the use of those flashers would be the responsibility of the vehicle manufacturer not the equipment manufacturer. The problem that you describe is one of incorrect use of properly functioning equipment. It is not a problem of defective equipment.

Sincerely,