ORLANDO, Fla. – If you have travel plans for the 4th of July, you might want to check your vehicle first.
Experts say there are hundreds of thousands of cars on Central Florida roads with safety defects.
Just weeks ago, flames shot from the bottom of a car on Interstate 4, while another motorist warned the driver to pull over.
Moments after the driver pulled over, the car burst into flames.
Tyla Kennedy said she still doesn't know what caused the fire, but she said she later learned her 2012 Kia Sorrento had a safety recall because of the engine.
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Chris Basso, who is the public relations manager for Carfax, says there are 3.5 million cars on the road in Florida with open safety recalls and 700,000 of those are in Central Florida.
"This is a massive issue in the state of Florida," he said. "There are dangerous things that can happen, from injuries to fires and even death."
While manufacturers are required to report recall information to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, sometimes that information doesn't make it to the owners, particularly if the vehicle has a second or third owner.
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"The more times a vehicle changes hands, the more likely it is that the manufacturer doesn't have the current owner's information to send them recall information," Basso said.
But there are many ways to find out. Using a free app, News 6 randomly selected a parking lot in Winter Park and checked for cars with open safety recalls. Within minutes, we spotted a car with one safety recall, and two cars with two safety recalls.
Jenna Stanton knew her Subaru Outback had two open recalls, but had not gotten around to fixing them.
"I don't know why," she said.
"The little inconvenience that it's going to cost you to get those recalls fixed pales in comparison to what can happen if you don't," Basso said.
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Basso said in most cases, recalls can be fixed in less than a day and many of them in just an hour or two.
If you want to check for open recalls on your car you can download the mycarfax app to your smartphone. You can also go to www.nhtsa.gov and put in your car's vin number, or you can check with your manufacturer.