2021 Nissan Rogue SUV recalled over child safety seat problem
Nissan's best-selling model has an issue with faulty child-seat-anchor welds.
Nissan is recalling its popular 2021 Rogue SUV over potentially faulty child-seat anchors. According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration filing, some 47,098 units of the compact crossover are at risk of having had their second-row upper child seat tethers improperly welded to the vehicle's seat frames. The resulting insecurely installed child seats could increase the likelihood of an injury during a sudden stop or crash.
According to notices related to the recall campaign, a supplier investigation uncovered that "clamping mechanisms on the seatback fixture were slightly loose, allowing movement of the seat frame, which caused the tether wires to be out of position during the welding operation." Nissan says it is unaware of any customer safety incidents related to the bad welds.
Affected 2021 Rogue models were assembled at Nissan's Smyrna, Tennessee plant between September 23, 2020 and April 20, 2021. Nissan will notify owners of the recall by mail beginning July 30, and owners of affected vehicles will be advised to have dealers inspect their rear seats. If a bad weld is discovered, service technicians will replace the vehicle's rear seatbacks as necessary at no cost to the owner.
Redesigned for the 2021 model year to take on models like the Ford Escape, Honda CR-V, Hyundai Tucson and Toyota RAV4, Nissan's third-generation Rogue debuted to strong reviews and has sold very well, becoming the brand's best-selling model. (In the company's just-released Q2 numbers, the Rogue's sales of 95,569 vehicles nearly outsold all of Nissan's seven car lines combined).
However, the Rogue has also been dogged by safety concerns, including an unexpectedly poor initial two-star front-passenger crash test rating from NHTSA. Following the lackluster scores revealed in February, the Japanese automaker quickly responded in March by announcing that a passenger-restraint retrofit kit designed to improve crash-test performance had already been instituted in models built after January 28.
