Rest assured business with their PR department and lawyers are doing all they can to cut this cost. Profit vs. you: Um... The hell with you, your family, safety of you, the public, and corruption of Government agencies isn't off the table given some of the flat out jokes for fixes that have come out. The litigation is all we the consumer really have left vs. corporations who refuse to spend money to fix the problems their bad gambles cause. Perhaps if you watched a pedestrian die splattered on the windshield due to brake failure on the 2011 Mini Countryman or maybe went through years of rehab and non-stop pain from your injuries a wreck can cause because: death is the easy way out. Oh yeah, and dealing with that you wind up paying for the parts to fix the brakes because: not covered under warranty, recall. etc. ...and due to liability parts are not available so please go scrap the vehicle. Still want a line item on the window sticker?
Putting a line item on a window sticker indicates one would like expensive recalls and fixes to end because it's raising the price of new vehicles. Just pay for it when you need repairs. Are you OK with a Ford Pinto being ahead of you with that 2011 Mini Countryman or a 1996 era pickup? Even today some Ford Pinto fireballs are still on the road. Yeah you can't get a replacement gas tank for one even from a junkyard, but, the cars were not recalled off the road like VW had too. Even then recalls have a hard time reaching people let alone parts shortages. Was years ago, but, college student I knew was driving a Ford Pinto with a leaking gas tank because it ran and was cheap. Thus the no replacement gas tanks comment as she was looking for one. A safe fuel cell retrofit was out of the budget.
You could ask where the "Emissions" line item is and that would be a good shock of how much it is costing "us in The USA" to save the world. Further add how much emissions reduces MPG on the sticker. Plenty of people have tested MPG improvements when emissions fall off. VW proved it and further proved that the US Government testing for our nearly unobtainable standards is a joke. Some of us have come to the conclusion The USA isn't going to save the world when a "tire fire" in a 3rd world country starts a tire recycling process... T O D A Y! Cost of emissions parts like: catalytic converters, DPF, DEF system, and R&D every model year to meet new standards, plus assumed warranty cost would simply STOMP the humor of a rounding error litigation line item.
Vehicles are taken off the road or fixed due to emissions NOT safety. Just look at VW, how they had to fix or buy back their vehicles over emissions. This was a "take no prisoners" ultimate fix the likes we rarely see for other design or parts defects.
We could go on about OEM's non-stop Beancounter gambles that pile up dead bodies. My Favorite would be the "Stupid Takata: ammonium nitrate is for mining!" And with all the initial BS spread around by Takata who can forget it's also used as fertilizer for farming. Low bidder even when the engineers who, all Space Shuttle Challenger like, said use of ammonium nitrate would be a problem long term in airbags. Look at how long this was covered up before the litigation was able to break gag orders and sealed settlements. The Takata air bag shrapnel bombs nearly constantly going off also helped. Takata Bankruptcy vs. someone falling on their sword.
Our corruption of their culture is complete.
The "Joke" I refer too is not limited too, but, includes the sound the horn if the vehicle isn't in "Park" when the door opens due to bad shifter design. Not a new problem as IRC Ford suffered from this for years in the 80's. Even the engineers in Michigan know the risk of using the parking brake: ice freezing the cables or salt corroding up the cables so they may not release after being set. GM's 1999+ SUV's and pickups only got a parking brake recall for Manual Transmissions only and still a bad joke of a fix at that. The difference was Manual Transmissions had more reported failures vs. the same design used on automatics. No longer an emergency brake it was a parking brake only: if it would even hold.
Later model stuff I get told my 2018 RAM 3500 can't be aligned because they welded up the adjustment nuts before I purchased it as part of a recall. Parts of course are not available yet. I find out on here that that isn't true, the OEM alignment specs suck anyway, and only one part is welded not relevant to the major portion of an alignment. (Damn ignorant service writer...) Further the welded up nuts are the final NHTSA approved fix although "failures" get a different design part. That's a "rounding error" covered in dealer prep fees to weld a nut vs. change a part although the unavailable part is just a slightly larger rounding error. Holding up the sale of the truck waiting on not available parts would be an extreme cost... No amount here justifies a line item on the window sticker.
GM's ignition switch should have put people in prison, but, the noise from the record breaking airbag recall buried this engineering disaster and GM's long cover-up.
Toyota's unintended acceleration was just brought up via a recent TDR thread on engine runaway. Toyota was even able to fool NASA by withholding information. So you think the reported numbers are small, yeah, some reading on Air Bag and ignition switch cover ups would enlighten you about this apparently standard and accepted business practice.
http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintended-acceleration-and-big-bowl-“spaghetti”-code
Bookout and Schwarz v. Toyota emanated from a September 2007 UA event that caused a fatal crash. Jean Bookout and her friend and passenger Barbara Schwarz were exiting Interstate Highway 69 in Oklahoma, when she lost throttle control of her 2005 Camry. When the service brakes would not stop her speeding sedan, she threw the parking brake, leaving a 150-foot skid mark from right rear tire, and a 25-foot skid mark from the left. The Camry, however, continued speeding down the ramp and across the road at the bottom, crashing into an embankment. Schwarz died of her injuries; Bookout spent five months recovering from head and back injuries.
Attorney Graham Esdale, of Beasley Allen, who represented the plaintiffs is the first to say that the Bookout verdict – in some measure – rested on those two black skid marks scoring the off- ramp.
“Toyota just couldn’t explain those away,” Esdale said. “The skid marks showed that she was braking.”
The Ford Pinto is a perfect classic example yet fuel tank problems continue with * ahem * some more recent Jeep vehicles needing a trailer hitch installed to make the fuel tanks safer in a rear-end collision.
For those who still dislike litigation you have no idea how little you get and how much you get pooped on anymore for trying. I suggest the real PR example of the Hot Coffee McDonalds case.
You know the Coffee that is served so hot it can be used to sort out "summer low temp" and "winter" engine thermostats because the coffee was served at ~190 degrees F? (The summer 160-180 degree thermostats would open in McDonald's coffee.) There has been a massive PR war since with the sole intent to reduce costs of lawsuits and awards by tainting people's thoughts about it. It's been very, very, very successful.
If You Scoffed At This McDonald’s Hot Coffee Lawsuit, You’re Completely Wrong And Need To Know It :
700 other people were severely burned including children and flat ignored by McDonalds before this lawsuit happened.
https://www.ranker.com/list/facts-about-mcdonalds-hot-coffee-lawsuit/erin-wisti
If you thought the McDonald's lawsuits was frivolous, guess again. The lawsuit actually shines a light on how the franchise operates (or operated), illustrating how the company placed profits ahead of the health and safety of its consumers. The case is continuously cited in pop-culture, but the facts are largely misrepresented. In 2011, the Hot Coffee documentary was released, which attempted to dispel misinformation about the case.
Cliff's Notes:
https://www.citizen.org/article/legal-myths-the-mcdonalds-hot-coffee-case/
Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
