You know, unless it's huge or funny or incredibly dangerous, I try to stay away from the recall threads. They're a little boring, a little tedeious and impact only a small number of our readers. Even fewer if it's a foreign recall.
This story will impact none of you, but it's one of the best recalls I've heard to date: See, the 20,000 examples of the Citroen C3 Picasso are being recalled in the UK because the passenger has the ability to activate the car's brakes. How you ask? Glad you're so inquisitive.
The car is French and they drive on the correct side of the road there and sit on the correct side, too. Not the British. They want right hand drive. And so, being French, Citroen gives in and builds them that way. Though they've done it all sorts of half-arsed by connecting the right-drive pedal to the left-hand-drive-side mounted brake interface. They didn't move everything over, just moved the pedal and hooked it up. This means that if the passenger hits just the right spot on the carpet, they get to control the brakes.
Handy if you're teaching someone to drive or if the driver dies on the motorway, a terrible idea any other time, though.
Follow over to the BBC to see video.
(Autoblog Via BBC News)
felonious says:
02:23 PM, 05/19/11
Glad I'm not the guy who thought that was a good idea!
agentorange says:
11:58 AM, 05/20/11
This has been the case for European cars sold in the UK for decades. It is the major cause of the soggy brake pedal so many British car journos bitch about. Usually the crosslink is in the engine compartment, but Citroen had to be different, as usual.