Product Liability for Defective Car Parts in Tennessee

Sometimes the cause of a Tennessee crash isn’t the driver at all. It’s a defective component installed in your vehicle by a parts manufacturer half a world away — a part that you trusted to do its job and that the manufacturer should have known would fail.

Here’s how Tennessee product liability law treats defective auto parts, what kinds of claims have been litigated successfully, and what to do if you suspect a part — not a person — caused your wreck.

The Law That Governs These Cases: The Tennessee Products Liability Act

Defective car part claims in Tennessee are governed by the Tennessee Products Liability Act (TPLA), codified at Tenn. Code § 29-28-101 et seq. The TPLA gives an injured person three primary theories of recovery against a manufacturer or seller:

1. Manufacturing Defect

The product was made differently than the manufacturer intended — a unit that came off the assembly line wrong. A specific airbag inflator that was contaminated during welding. A specific tire with a malformed bead. A specific brake hose with an undetected weak point.

2. Design Defect

The product was made exactly the way it was designed — but the design itself is unreasonably dangerous. The Takata airbag inflators that used ammonium nitrate as a propellant weren’t manufactured wrong. They were designed in a way that made rupture under heat and humidity foreseeable.

3. Failure to Warn

The product is reasonably designed and manufactured, but the manufacturer failed to warn users of a risk that they knew or should have known about. This often appears alongside the other two theories.

The Tennessee Supreme Court’s analysis in Harden v. Danek Medical, Inc., 985 S.W.2d 449 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1998) established the framework Tennessee courts apply to product defect claims, including the role of federal regulatory standards in defining the standard of care.

The Most Common Defective Auto Parts in Recent Years

Airbags

The defective airbag landscape has been one long, ongoing crisis.

Takata airbag inflators — used by 19 automakers in roughly 67 million U.S. vehicles — were prone to rupture during deployment, sending metal shrapnel into the cabin. The recall has been called the largest in U.S. automotive history and has been linked to more than 20 deaths worldwide.

ARC Automotive inflators — manufactured at a Knoxville, Tennessee facility — became the focus of a separate NHTSA investigation. The agency identified a manufacturing defect involving welding byproducts that could clog the inflator and cause rupture. NHTSA recommended a recall of approximately 52 million inflators installed in vehicles from Audi, BMW, Buick, Chevrolet, Ford, GMC, Hyundai, Kia, Porsche, Stellantis, Toyota, and Volkswagen, among others.

For drivers, the danger isn’t just the airbag failing to deploy — it’s deploying so violently that the airbag itself becomes a weapon.

Tires

Tire defects come in several forms:

• Tread separation — when the tread peels away from the casing at speed, often causing loss of vehicle control
• Belt separation — internal layers separating, similar to tread separation
• Sidewall failures — manufacturing weaknesses leading to blowouts
• Aging tires — tires that exceed safe service life but were sold or installed without warning

We cover the basics in our guide on tire tread separation accidents in Nashville.

Brake Systems

• Anti-lock braking system (ABS) software failures
• Defective master cylinders, calipers, or hydraulic lines
• Brake booster failures that increase pedal effort dramatically
• Brake-by-wire system glitches in newer vehicles

Steering Systems

• Power steering failures, particularly in vehicles with electric power steering
• Failed tie rods, ball joints, or steering racks
• Wandering or jerking steering inputs

Fuel Systems

When fuel system defects contribute to a post-crash fire, the consequences can be catastrophic. Our overview of vehicle fires in Tennessee covers what families need to know about these claims.

Seat Belts and Restraint Systems

• Belts that unlatch on impact
• Belts with defective retractors that allow excessive movement
• Seats that detach from their floor mounts in a crash

Tires, Wheels, and Suspension

A wheel that separates at speed, a suspension component that fractures, or a wheel hub that fails can put a vehicle out of the driver’s control regardless of how carefully they were operating it.

Roof and Structural Components

Crush resistance failures during rollovers, weak A-pillars, and door latches that release on impact have all been the subjects of major product liability litigation.

Federal Recalls and Tennessee Civil Cases

A federal recall doesn’t automatically establish liability — but it provides powerful evidence and is often the trigger for civil claims.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) maintains a public database of recalls at nhtsa.gov/recalls. You can check your specific vehicle by VIN. The agency also maintains a separate searchable database of consumer complaints, technical service bulletins, and ongoing investigations.

Manufacturers are required to file a Part 573 Defect Information Report with NHTSA within five working days of learning a safety defect exists. They’re also required to notify owners of recalled vehicles within 60 days and provide free remedies.

In civil cases, evidence that the manufacturer knew about the defect — and how long it knew — is often the most damaging piece of the file. Internal emails, technical service bulletins, prior incident reports, and prior lawsuits all play a role.

What “Defect” Means Under Tennessee Law

The TPLA requires a plaintiff to show that the product was “defective or unreasonably dangerous” at the time it left the manufacturer’s control. Tennessee courts use two standards:

Consumer Expectations Test

Would the product’s danger have been recognized by an ordinary consumer with ordinary knowledge of the product’s characteristics?

Risk-Utility Analysis

Would a reasonably prudent manufacturer, knowing the product’s risks, have placed it on the market in that condition? This balances the product’s utility against the risks it creates.

For complex auto parts, the risk-utility analysis usually carries more weight, because consumers don’t have meaningful knowledge of how an airbag inflator or ABS module works.

Statute of Limitations and Statute of Repose

Tennessee imposes both a statute of limitations and a statute of repose on product liability claims:

• Statute of limitations: generally one year from the date of injury under Tenn. Code § 28-3-104. For wrongful death, the period is also one year.
• Statute of repose: under Tenn. Code § 29-28-103, most product liability claims must be brought within 10 years of the product’s first purchase for use, or within one year of the expiration of the product’s anticipated life — whichever is shorter. There are exceptions, including for human injury caused by certain asbestos products and for diseases with long latency periods.

The interaction of these two deadlines means that an old vehicle can be outside the window of liability even if the defect just caused an injury yesterday. Get an evaluation early.

Comparative Fault and Product Liability

Tennessee’s modified comparative fault system from McIntyre v. Balentine, 833 S.W.2d 52 (Tenn. 1992), and codified at Tenn. Code § 20-1-119, applies to product liability cases. A driver’s fault for the underlying crash can be compared against the manufacturer’s fault for the defect — but recovery is barred only when the plaintiff’s share is 50% or higher.

This is significant because in many crashes there are multiple potential defendants:

• The other driver who hit you
• The owner of the other driver’s vehicle (in some cases)
• The driver’s employer (for commercial vehicles)
• The manufacturer of the defective component
• The vehicle’s manufacturer
• A repair shop that installed or serviced the defective part
• A used-car dealer that sold the vehicle without disclosing recall status

Our overview of how Tennessee determines fault in left turn car accidents covers some of the related comparative-fault dynamics when multiple parties contribute to a crash.

What You Can Recover

Tennessee allows product liability plaintiffs to recover:

• Medical expenses — past and future
• Lost wages and lost earning capacity
• Pain and suffering — capped at $750,000 in most cases, $1 million for catastrophic injury under Tenn. Code § 29-39-102
• Loss of consortium by a spouse
• Property damage
• Wrongful death damages if the defect contributed to a fatality
• Punitive damages when a manufacturer knew of the defect and concealed it

Our overview of types of damages in a Tennessee personal injury claim walks through these categories in more detail.

Evidence That Matters in a Defective Parts Case

These cases live or die on evidence. Critical pieces include:

• The vehicle itself. Do not let the insurance company total and crush the vehicle before it’s been inspected by a qualified expert. Send a preservation letter the moment you suspect a defect.
• The defective part itself, retained intact and chain-of-custody documented
• Vehicle event-data-recorder (EDR) data — black box records of speed, brake, throttle, steering, and other inputs in the seconds before impact
• Maintenance records — proving the part hadn’t been improperly serviced or modified
• Recall and TSB documentation — every safety bulletin, recall notice, and known issue affecting the vehicle
• Forensic engineering expert analysis — a metallurgist for material failures, an automotive engineer for design issues, an accident reconstructionist for the crash sequence
• Photographs of the failure point, the crash scene, and the vehicle
• Witness statements

The vehicle is the single most important piece of evidence. Many cases are lost because owners — or their insurers — disposed of the vehicle before it could be inspected.

What to Do If You Suspect a Defect Caused Your Crash

1. Get medical care first, then preserve everything else.
2. Don’t authorize disposal of the vehicle — even if it’s a total loss. Tell your insurer in writing that the vehicle must be preserved.
3. Photograph everything — the failure point, the cabin, the engine compartment, debris on the road.
4. Save the recall history — print your VIN search results from nhtsa.gov/recalls and save them.
5. Save maintenance records — every receipt, every service record, every dealer interaction.
6. Don’t let the manufacturer’s representative inspect the vehicle alone — they will, but only with your expert present.
7. Talk to a lawyer fast. Statute of repose deadlines, recall investigation timing, and evidence preservation all have time clocks.

You Don’t Pay Unless We Win

The Higgins Firm has handled product liability cases involving defective vehicles, components, and equipment across Tennessee. Free, confidential consultations. Contingency fee — you owe nothing unless we recover for you. If you suspect that a faulty airbag, brake, tire, or other vehicle component contributed to your crash, call us before you sign anything from your insurer or release the vehicle.

The right experts, the right preservation steps, and the right legal team make these cases winnable. Without those things, the manufacturer wins by default — because the evidence walks away.