Find recalls for your car with FREE Carfax app

2014 has been a record breaking year for car recalls. Just last week an estimated 7 million cars in the U.S. were subject to a Takata faulty airbag recall.

Many people never even know a recall exists on their car - never receiving a manufacturers notice or having bought a car used. And that lack of knowledge can put you and your family at risk, as well as other drivers on the road.

Is your car safe to drive? We are showing you how, at the touch of a button, you can check.

Donna Voag considers her son one of the lucky ones. He was driving a Hyundai Elantra on a side street when part of the front suspension collapsed.

Voag explains, "I started looking on the internet and I found out there had been a recall on his car and it was something we didn't know about."

She says there had been an open safety recall on the car for about five years, but says she was never notified.

However, Voag's problem, we found, is not unusual.

Action News joined up with Carfax to warn unsuspecting drivers about potential dangers on their cars.

We scanned cars across a parking lot and found dozens of open recalls. One Toyota Camry had three - two that have been linked to multiple deaths, and one that can cause a fire. A Honda Odyssey we found had a recall that, if left unfixed, could result in the airbag failing to inflate.

Using a free Carfax app, we plugged in a license plate and found Michelle Mingey has a recall on her car from nearly 10 years ago.

Chris Basso from Carfax explains, "This was for a major recall that Ford issued several years ago that could cause a fire in this car."

Michelle says, "I think that's pretty scary, I don't want to be on fire in this car."

Chris Basso says Carfax records found 150,000 cars in Pennsylvania were sold with open recalls last year. And shockingly, 1 out of every 3 minivans, used to tote kids around, have open recalls.

By downloading the My Carfax App FOR FREE it will identify current open recalls on up to five cars, and notify you about any NEW recalls, possibly before you ever get a notice in the mail.

Attorney Robert Silverman from lemonlaw.com tells us, "It takes sometimes months for registrations to hit the internet and for records to be updated."

Silverman's client Katie Hauck says that is what happened to her.

"I started to smell gas in my home and I didn't know what it was," Katie said.

She learned there was a recall after the fact.

"The gas tank was corroding around the seams on half the tank and the tank was visibly wet with gas," Silverman explained.

Katie says she never got a notice from the manufacturer, and just by luck, she may have saved her own life by seeing the recall on the Carfax app.

To download the free Carfax app, visit https://www.mycarfax.com/carmaintenanceapp.