Prestone Products Recalls Windshield De-Icer and Ice and Frost Shield Due to Failure to Meet Child Resistant Closure Requirement

Recall Insight

This CPSC action (record #15232) was formally reported on September 3, 2015. It is classified under Moderate severity, with a current status of Active. Prestone Products Corporation, of Lake Forest. Ill. is listed as the recalling firm. Federal records indicate About 4.1 million units are affected.

The documented reason for this recall is: The trigger spray assembly can be removed from the De-Icer and Frost Shield container. The product contains methanol and ethylene glycol. Children may gain access to the product by removing the trigger assembly, posing … Distribution information was not included in the agency filing, so consumers should assume broad potential exposure until the firm publishes point-of-sale details. The remedy documented by the agency is: Always keep all products that contain hazardous chemicals out of reach and sight of children. Consumers should inspect the bottle to see if the trigger assembly can be removed by twisting the neck sh… — consumers holding this product should act on that instruction rather than relying on general guidance.

To put this record in context, PlainRecalls indexes 83,949 recalls across the FDA, CPSC, NHTSA and USDA FSIS going back to 1995. Within the same product category, the database holds 6 closely related recalls, of which 1 were also issued by CPSC. That clustering is a signal — repeated actions in a narrow category often indicate a systemic quality-control issue, a supplier-wide contamination, or a design defect that has propagated across product lines. This recall is roughly 11 years old; older recalls can remain relevant because many units enter resale, rental, and secondary-market channels where the original warning never reaches the end user. Always cross-check the recall number against the official agency page before relying on any summary.