9 Shocking Car Fails You'll Never Believe Made It To Production

1. Suzuki Celerio brake failure

Last week Suzuki recalled its new Celerio model after journalists conducting brake tests suddenly found the brakes didn’t work. At 80mph.

Teknikens Värld is a Swedish automotive magazine which is perhaps most famous for its ‘elk test.’ The test simulates quickly avoiding an obstacle in the road by turning sharply left, then immediately right. The transfer in momentum can be enough to unsettle high-sided cars, so manufacturers implement systems that counteract the pendulum effect and keep the car stable.

Back in 1997 the then-new Mercedes A-class was overturned during a test, while the Jeep Grand Cherokee popped multiple tyres in 2012.

3. Ford Pinto's exploding fuel tank

The Ford Pinto was meant to be a rival to the cheap and cheerful Japanese cars that were becoming popular in the ’60s. During testing, engineers discovered that if the car was hit from behind - even at low speeds - the rear-mounted petrol tank had a tendency to break apart and dump fuel on the road. That made it a huge fire risk, but unbelievably Ford decided it would cost more to fix the issue than it would to pay the victims, so it left the issue in place.

Ford’s knowledge of the problem came to light in 1977, and a year later all 1971-1976 Pintos were recalled.

4. GM's faulty ignition switches

Knowing about a fault, but doing nothing about it. That would never happen today, right? Wrong.

In 2014 GM was forced to issue a number of recalls that affected as many as 28 million cars worldwide due to faulty ignition switches. The problem meant that the ignition could be switched off during driving, stopping the airbags deploying in the case of a crash. The fault has so far been attributed to 42 deaths. Shockingly, GM knew about the problem for over a decade before taking action, and is under investigation to determine why it took so long to act.

5. Toyota's unintended acceleration

Anyone who has spent any time stuck behind a dawdling Toyota driver knows that any acceleration experienced is probably unintentional. Back in 2009 it was discovered that a misplaced floor mat could cause the accelerator to become trapped open. In early 2010, Toyota realised some of the stuck accelerator issues hadn’t been caused by misplaced floor mats, and issued another recall to fix the throttle pedal’s tendency to stick.

6. Porsche 918 suspension fails

When you buy one of the world’s most sought-after hypercars, you probably want to drive it quickly. Unfortunately that could’ve been a bit dangerous if Porsche hadn’t realised that control arms on the rear suspension were susceptible to breaking under ‘race conditions.’ A little later Porsche had to replace fasteners on the front axle. Confidence inspiring…

7. No escape from a 458

In America, legislation requires a catch in the boot that allows an individual trapped inside to get out. The Ferrari 458’s latch didn’t work, and so a recall was required. I’d imagine this was discovered during a hilarious prank gone wrong…

8. Nervous passenger's dream ride

England is a pain in the backside for manufacturers. While most of the world drives on the right, we (and a few others) drive on the left. That means cars made for our shores must be converted to right-hand drive. Peugeot/Citroen did this by fitting a crossbar from the RHD brake pedal across to the mechanism on the left. Unfortunately they didn’t protect it, so passengers could push on the braking bar through the carpet.

9. Brakes too strong to no brakes at all

The Lancia Beta Montecarlo is another car that had a problem with its brakes. This car’s issue was that the servo was too strong and would cause the front wheels to lock, so to fix the problem Lancia simply removed the servo. You might not be able to stop, but at least your wheels weren’t locked up as you hit the car in front.