How to know if there’s a recall on your car in 20 seconds

The story was an eye-opener. One in five cars on the road in New Jersey are under recall and aren't being fixed. That means 1.4 million vehicles. Sure if you get a notice that the glove box might not lock you're probably going to ignore that. If you get a notice that your steering wheel could come off while driving that might get your attention.

Still, people get extremely busy in the Garden State working so hard just to stay alive in such an expensive state. Sometimes you put things off. Sometimes you forget altogether that there was this envelope from GM you threw on top the fridge and never opened. So if the story of ignored recall notices got you thinking, here's an extremely fast way to know if there has ever been a recall on your vehicle. All you need is the Vehicle Identification Number which you can find on the driver's side dashboard up where it meets the window. If it's not there, open the driver's door and look for it on the door post (the edge where the door latches). It will be a 17 character VIN both letters and numbers. Or sometimes your insurance card will even have it.

Then go to this site and type in the 17 characters and hit search. It will tell you instantly all the recalls on your car and the exact nature of the problem.

I'm telling you this could become addictive. We tried it on our crew here. Mine had none, Doyle's had one and producer Joe V's car had two.

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