“Ferrari issues recall notice to replace brake fluid cap in nearly all cars sold since 2005”
Sounds way different than:
“Almost every Ferrari sold since 2005 is being recalled”
The first one sounds like a common occurrence in the car industry. The second one sounds like a salmonella outbreak in frozen peas that you need to throw away the bag or return it to the store.
Err..wait, it IS a clickbait headline.
I didn't say it wasn't - I said it sounds a bit more alarming than it actually is. The vehicle doesn't have to go anywhere, it just has to pop into the service garage quickly.
In this case the issue is tiny, the fix is tiny. It's not like a recall where a decent number of people will die from exploding gas tanks, which also falls under the word "recall".
Maybe if they added a severity, even a simple 1-5, like computer people use for vulnerabilities, or the military uses for levels of alert, or we use for storms, and so on, this would not happen.
But using the correct word can be alarmist if articles, headlines, or pundits use it to scare beliefs into the middle of the possible range when it's at the low end.
It sounds more alarming than is the case in practice. They is literally no 'recall' - you just pop in - so the word isn't even accurate if you read it literally. I'm not sure how to explain it beyond that?
But I think the car industry is an exception in that it makes sense to fix the effected product. Most other products that are recalled (food, or the Galaxy Note 7, or other gadgets, for example), are not quickly fixed. In those industries (most other than automotive) a “recall” means throwing away potentially huge amounts of product.
Edit: To clarify, I’m saying the title could be easily misunderstood. I understand that it is correct.
> it just has to pop into the service garage
In other words, a recall. I don't see what's alarming about this. An inconvenience at best, but chances are that you'll pop in for routine service at some point anyway.
"Toyota recalls 120,000 vehicles for minor problem XYZ!"
zomg, 120k, that's a huge number, what a HORRIBLE thing. Boy they really screwed something up!
Never mind the fact that this may span a production run of 4.7 Million vehicles over 8 years. This is less then 3% of customers affected because they all happened to use the same generic part for common function (e.g. a simple brake fluid reservoir cap).
This sort of thinking has caused the word "recall" to get a bad reputation. Worse so when it's a "safety recall" which generally is the same thing, but actually tied to a part like a seatbelt, airbag, etc. Combine the negative connotations with the word safety and it just amplifies the unwarranted panic level.
I've never considered "recall" to be alarmist. It's just a process. I look at the recall notice, see what I have to do, and go from there. 95% of recalls I've been involved in are similar to this one: go to the shop, replace a $50 part, go on with my day.
I just find it weird that the name of a mundane process is "alarmist". Different exposure, I guess.
So when they hear $AUTOMAKER is issuing a big recall, to a lot of people it means there's something massively unsafe about those cars. Even though sometimes a recall is just replacing a cap that doesn't seal as well as it should, or an exhaust filter canister not performing as it should, or other less critical recall reasons.
That's literally what the process is called though?
>A recall is issued when a manufacturer or NHTSA determines that a vehicle, equipment, car seat, or tire creates an unreasonable safety risk or fails to meet minimum safety standards. [1]
In this case, a piece of equipment on these Ferraris fails to meet a minimum standard, so a recall is issued. Where your association of recall = scrap the car comes from, I don't know, but issuing a recall is pretty damn standard, happens all the time, and has no bearing on what the fix for the recalled equipment/car/etc. might be.
[1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls