I am sorry, but I did not get any of these notifications.
Either at the beginning of this month or the end of last month, I wrote and called the NHTSA and received a phone call back from an NHTSA representative. After arguing with them for about 5 minutes, she realized I was correct, and she went further into my records. I told her that there was no excuse that I have not received a formal response and that she, as well as her co-workers, cannot use Covid as an excuse because they have continually been receiving a check for work. I also pointed out the time frame of the initial complaint and that I filed a formal NHTSA Defect Petition / ODI (Office of Defects Investigations) petition and by law they are required to formally respond to it. Then I mentioned that it was a bad look on the agency, because the higher-ups that were included in the initial emails, as well as all subsequent emails had an opportunity to reach out to their subordinates to follow-up and check on the status. She and I spoke and she informed me that she would have someone else to follow-up with me that day and I told her that if it did not happen that I was going to send a self-addressed, signature-required envelope to the Secretary of Transportation and I was going to come with receipts and I was going to make sure in that letter that I pointed out every higher ranking employee that has been included in the emails and point out how they have allowed for the subordinates to not do their jobs. She told me to hold on she informed me that she was sending an internal email that I would be included in.
Less than 30 minutes later I received a phone call from a Department of Transportation Safety Defects Investigator. He did the apologies and I said that I don't care because he had been attached on some of the emails and he had not responded to one email that I sent to him. He emailed me and asked a bunch of questions and I answered them and over time I would reach back out to him and ask about status and he would ignore. I quickly reminded him of this and I quickly reminded him that I have all of the emails with dates and times and no responses. I also told him that I intentionally have not fixed this problem because it is a known problem with the defective and cheaply made foreign parts. He knew exactly what I had sent him and he said that he was still investigating and I asked what was there to investigate, I didn't make a part bin car, GM did. I also told him that it is sad that a reporter detailed the miss by the NHTSA as they clearly investigated and stated the same thing that I did.
He said that he would get back with me. So, I will wait and if they continue to piss me off, I will put all of the information that I provided down to the images of the problem, parts, journal articles, etc., and a letter together to the Secetary and let him have them respond to me on how this has taken on 3 years, how his staff employees have not done their jobs during this time by not addressing the non-responses and let them address to me in writing how they have not me the legal standard for timely completion and a legally required response to my formal petition.
So, I have not let this go. Life happens and it slips, but I have been emailing over the course.
A point... all of the higher up staff employees can not use the excuse that they were not aware of the petition nor the subsequent emails, because when I sent the initial petition, one of the NHSTA staff lawyers emailed me and asked me to respond with a time that was convenient for me to talk. During our call he wanted to talk with me, because he wanted me to change something minor in order for the petition to meet the legal requirements of the law. I adjusted the items and all of these employees were on his original, my date/response and then the email that contained the PDF with the modified petition.
Regards