App shows if your vehicle has recalls that haven't been fixed

It is an alarming number -- 46 million vehicles are on the road right now with recalls that have not been fixed. In some cases the drivers do not even know about the problems.

But there is an app that may be able to change that.

It only takes a smart phone and a few seconds to find out if your car, or the one you are thinking about buying has an unrepaired recall. It's information that could save you or the ones you love.

Victor Sauceda loves his truck. But he had no idea there is something wrong with it.

"You've got two open recalls here, this one is for the diesel fuel heater electrical connector, so when you are talking electrical and fuel, there is a fire hazard there and this one is for the power train control module," said Chris Basso of Carfax.

Basso found Sauceda's truck trouble in just seconds by entering the truck's license plate number into an app that keeps track of unrepaired recalls.

"If it's that fast and that easy, it's something we should figure out, find out and fix it," said Sauceda.

Victor is not alone in having a vehicle with an open recall. It's estimated that 4.6 million vehicles in Texas have an open recall. We entered the license plate numbers of 14 vehicles at Hermann Park and found four of them had open recalls. One minivan had multiple recalls waiting to be fixed, some dating back more than three years.

"Passenger side airbag, the airbag unit malfunction and the shift interlock. Meaning you could think that car is in park, it actually is not and it could roll away and cause a crash," said Basso.

The app Basso is using was developed by Carfax. It's free to download and use and can show you in seconds if a car has an unfixed recall.

Sauceda's convinced it's a tool every driver should have.

"Yeah, it's very nice to have that app," said Sauceda.

As you know there are millions of cars that need their airbags replaced, but we found trouble with ignition switches and transmissions too.

If you don't have a smart phone, you can go to SaferCar.gov to find open car recalls.