The Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI) has joined a call to arms by consumer motoring magazine Auto Express for manufacturers to disclose the details of known problems with their vehicles.

Auto Express is taking issue with manufacturers only detailing registered safety recalls and not other faults like reliability issues.

The AA and the RAC have also joined the RMI to ask manufacturers to issue public technical service bulletins – documents that detail the symptoms, causes and fixes for known problems – in the same way that they do for safety recalls.

Backing the Auto Express campaign call, the RAC’s motoring strategist, Adrian Tink, said: “There’s no reason why info like this should be hidden from motorists.”

And Edmund King, president of the AA, added: “Anything that improves transparency in the mysteries of vehicle ownership would be a big help.”