Investigations
Timeliness of 49 CFR 579 Reporting (EWR)
NHTSA Audit Query AQ20001 - closed, opened 2020-07-20.
NHTSA investigation AQ20001 is a Audit Query opened on 2020-07-20 and currently closed. The subject is tracked inside the Office of Defects Investigation queue. Latest activity on this investigation was logged on 2025-01-16 - NHTSA updates that field whenever an Information Request goes out, a supplement is filed, or a status change is recorded in the public docket.
An Audit Query like AQ20001 is how NHTSA checks that manufacturers are meeting their statutory obligations, things like notifying owners, reporting foreign recalls, and tracking remedy completion rates under TREAD and FMVSS requirements.
Investigators summarized the matter as follows: "On July 20, 2020, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an Audit Query (AQ) to investigate Harmony Juvenile Products’ (Harmony) reporting of death and injury claims and foreign recalls under 4..." Investigations are the early-warning layer of the federal auto-safety system, sitting upstream of formal recalls and defect orders. Whether this one closes without action or escalates into an Engineering Analysis, the full history stays in the ODI archive so researchers, litigators, and buyers can pull the paper trail at any time.
Investigation Summary
On July 20, 2020, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an Audit Query (AQ) to investigate Harmony Juvenile Products’ (Harmony) reporting of death and injury claims and foreign recalls under 49 CFR Part 579. NHTSA’s investigation was prompted by a fatal incident involving child restraints manufactured by both Harmony and another manufacturer for which NHTSA received death and injury reports from the involved vehicle manufacturer and the other child restraint manufacturer. NHTSA did not receive a report from Harmony until after NHTSA contacted the company. NHTSA was also aware of foreign recalls of Harmony products that NHTSA believed may have been substantially similar to products sold in the United States but were not reported to the Agency. In response to NHTSA’s information request issued during this investigation, Harmony asserted that because of the unique requirements for service of process for foreign entities (Harmony is located in Canada) and the limited information available to the company, Harmony did not have enough information regarding the fatal incident to submit a report to NHTSA under Part 579 until after Harmony was contacted by NHTSA. Harmony also responded that there were no foreign recalls involving substantially similar products that Harmony did not report to NHTSA. After NHTSA opened this AQ, Harmony improved its processes for compliance with Part 579 by taking the following actions: (1) formalizing its previously unwritten procedures for reviewing communications to help ensure that future communications would be reported to NHTSA pursuant to 49 CFR 579.5; (2) auditing customer contracts to determine whether any may have met the reporting requirements for consumer complaints under 49 CFR 579.25(c); (3) auditing its records to see whether there were analyses of field incidents that meet the definition of a “field report,” which Harmony is required to report to NHTSA; and (4) reviewing charge-back information provided
About This Investigation Type
An Audit Query (AQ) is conducted to verify manufacturer compliance with safety standards and recall requirements.
Data from NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation. Cross-references: NHTSA recall campaign API and NHTSA FARS where fatality records overlap. PlainCars does not rate or recommend vehicles. about how PlainCars sources NHTSA data.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.