Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Leads List Of Recent Major Product Recalls

Oh, poor Samsung. It can’t get any worse for the Korean company after they have issued a recall of the Galaxy Note 7 for the second time. CNN Money has the news.

“Samsung issued an alert to customers on Monday, asking users to immediately turn off their Galaxy Note 7 smartphones — which have been spontaneously catching fire.”

The article adds that this new Note 7 recall comes one day after Samsung halted production of the smartphone. And that comes just a couple weeks after Samsung released replacement phones after first recalling the Note 7 a week after its release. This has become a total PR disaster for Samsung, a company that was making a huge comeback when the Galaxy S7 Edge was released earlier this year.

The Note 7 is just one product on a list of major recalls that have nearly destroyed companies and have damaged consumers. Let’s take a look at some others.

Toyota

There’s a chance that if you bought a new Toyota in 2010, you (and that is if you are still alive) might have been driving on the highway and suddenly found that your gas pedal is stuck. According to Time, On Jan. 21, 2010, Toyota issued a recall (its second in three months) on 4.1 million vehicles sold in the U.S. and Europe. That added to a total of 9 million products recalled.

It ended up that there were no electronic defects in Toyotas as the faulty pedals weren’t put on correctly. In some cases, they just got stuck under the floor mat.

Graco And Simplicity Baby Cribs

In 2007, two infants were killed due to a design flaw on baby cribs by these companies. The Washington Post was one of the first outlets to report on the crib recall.

“One million cribs sold under the Graco and Simplicity brands were recalled yesterday because of a design flaw that led to the deaths of two infants. Two other babies have died in cribs made by the same company, which has had three recalls in two years.”

The article added that the recall was announced just as the Chicago Tribune had planned to publish the results of an investigation into the April 2005 death of Liam Johns, who was just 9-months-old, in Sacramento. The very first recall of the crib was issued in December 2005 because the wooden mattress support could dislodge and fall, potentially causing babies to become trapped and suffocate. The most recent recall involved hardware that allowed the crib’s drop side to come off — something that could cause an infant to get trapped between the mattress and the rail.

Extra-Strength Tylenol

The Tylenol debacle certainly isn’t recent, but it was one of the biggest recalls in modern history and important to mention in any list of company disasters. If you took Extra Strength Tylenol and lived in the Midwest during the fall of 1982, chances are that…well…you may not actually be here to read this. As Time reported, seven people in the Chicago area died after taking Extra Strength Tylenol, which was filled with potassium cyanide. It was always thought that one madman traveled from store to store and laced the Tylenol with cyanide. But later reports indicate that the tampering could have occurred at the Johnson & Johnson factory, where Tylenol was produced.

Firestone Ford Tires

A brand new tire may look good, but what goes on inside the tire could hurt you. As many found out in 2000, it could even kill you. According to Bloomberg, Bridgestone/Firestone recalled 6.5 million tires after treads separated on models used in Ford Explorers and Mercury Mountaineers. The failed tires resulted in about 200 deaths and 3,000 serious injuries. Bridgestone spent up to $440 million on recall costs with Ford Spending $3 billion. Ford also lost a lot of money in lawsuits.

The moral of the story is that all these companies came back strong. Perhaps Samsung needs to contact these companies’ PR reps to see how they handled their disasters. Unfortunately, it looks like the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is pretty much over with for now.

[Featured Image by Daryl Deino]