Yamaha Snowmobile Recall: Risk of Steering Control Loss

About 2,500 Yamaha FX10 snowmobiles have been recalled due to a defect that could cause a loss of steering control, posing a serious risk of an accident that may injure or kill riders.

The Yamaha snowmobile recall was issued on Wednesday by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Yamaha Motor Corporation U.S.A. According to the recall notice, a bolt in the right front A arm of the steering assembly can loosen on some vehicles. Although there have been no reports of injuries associated with the product defect, this could riders to lose the ability to control the snowmobile.

Five models of Yamaha 2009 FX10 Snowmobiles are subject to this recall, including:

• FX Nytro, model number FX10Y
• FX Nytro XTX, model number FX10XTY
• FX Nytro RTX, model number FX10RTRY
• FX Nytro MTX, model number FX10MTRY
• FX Nytro RTX SE, model number FX10RTRSY

The snowmobiles were sold by Yamaha dealers nationwide from June 2008 through January 2010 for between $10,000 and $11,000.

Anyone with one of the recalled Yamaha snowmobiles has been urged to stop using the vehicle immediately and contact a dealer to schedule a free repair. The company reports that all registered owners have been sent mail notifications of the snowmobile recall.

This is the second time in less than a year that Yamaha has had to deal with safety issues involving their vehicles. On March 31, 2009, sales were temporarily halted for their Yamaha Rhino ATV, so that safety repairs and modifications could be performed on about 145,000 of the side-by-side vehicles after the CPSC determined that they were prone to rollover even when driven at slow speeds on level terrain.

Yamaha added safety features to the Rhino ATV, such as half doors, additional passenger handholds, and made alterations to the wheel base to improve handling. The company currently faces several hundred Yamaha Rhino lawsuits that are pending throughout the United States on behalf of riders who allege that Yamaha failed to take steps to improve the safety of the vehicles soon enough, resulting in severe or fatal injuries when one of the ATVs rolled over.