Remy Alternator Fires

On April 2, 2010, Remy Power Products, LLC (Remy) reported that certain alternators, produced between December 19, 2009, and February 22, 2010, contain an internal voltage regulator that can become damaged by transient voltage that may occur when the regulator and the alternator are built, tested, and installed. Should the regulator's circuit be damaged, thermal degradation of the circuit can occur, increasing the risk of a fire or heat damage even when the vehicle is off. NHTSA assigned recall number 10E-010 to this matter. On April 14, 2010, the Recall Management Division (RMD) requested Remy provide its customer list of all recipients that purchased the defective alternators. Remy responded with an e-mail that contained insufficient contact information for those recipient, and accordingly mailed Remy and information request (IR) letter for the complete information on April 28, 2010. That same day, RMD mailed Daimler Trucks and Knopf Automotive, who were listed as recipients and for which RMD had additional contact information. Daimler Trucks responded that all defective alternators they received had been returned to Remy. RMD never received a response from Knopf Automotive. Previous EQ mailings have revealed that Knopf is a distributor that would not have an obligation to notify NHTSA of a safety defect or contact a recall campaign. RMD received a more detailed customer list from Remy on June 3, 2010, listing 90 purchasers and over 20,000 alternators. RMD then issued IR letters to those companies that re-sold the equipment under another brand/trademark, mostly automotive retail chains. On July 21, 2010, RMD mailed IR letters to Associate Jobbers Warehouse, AutoZone Parts, PASCO, General Parts, O'Reilly Automotive, and Bosch Canada. Only General Parts chose to recall the alternators (10E-036) they sold under their trademark, Proven Value. The others, Associate Jobbers Warehouse, AutoZone, and O'Reilly, responded that they supplied Remy with customer lists of purch