GM Ignition Recall Snowballing

[FoMoJo]

This story has been gaining momentum for about a month.  It's starting to get nasty now.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140315/AUTO0103/303150018/0/auto01/Ignition-switch-recall-engulfs-GM

One month after General Motors Co. announced a seemingly routine recall for older cars for ignition switch problems, the callback of 1.62 million cars linked to 12 deaths and 31 crashes in which air bags failed to inflate has grown into the biggest crisis the Detroit automaker has faced in years.

GM now faces a criminal investigation, looming hearings in Congress, scrutiny from federal regulators and mounting negative publicity over the question of whether GM recalled the cars in a timely manner. News reports have featured tearful stories of people killed in now-recalled cars. Tuesday, GM staffers are scheduled to brief House Energy and Commerce aides from both political parties on events leading to the recall.

The automaker has apologized for its handling of the recall and hired two outside law firms to investigate the company's response to ignition switch problems that were spotted as early as 2001 on a preproduction Saturn Ion. Its stock price fell 9.6 percent this week.

............................................

The Texas lawyer, who also is involved in the class-action suit filed Friday, said he believes GM "actively pursued a cover-up for 10 years."

He said he will look to have GM's 2009 bankruptcy reopened because he believes the company falsely represented that it did not know of any product liability cases that might be brought against them. Hilliard said he would have to convince a bankruptcy judge that GM understood its liability potential.

Under terms of the bankruptcy agreement, the "new" GM is not liable for accidents occurring before bankruptcy. GM previously has said the company did not assume liability for claims that came from accidents that occurred before July 2009, but it will put the customer first "and that will continue to guide us."

Read link for more info...

[2o6]

I don't know if it's a cover-up, or simply horrible management. It's not like the Cobalt/HHR/ION are quality cars, there are other issues with those things....they're pretty rife with quality issues.

[FoMoJo]

GM speeds up ignition switch part production

She will be tested...


GM recalls 1.7M more vehicles; Barra vows to revamp system

GM faces firestorm of public opinion

[FlatBlackCaddy]

GM has had problems in the past that they failed to acknowledge in a timely matter, this just seems like their SOP.

Except this one didn't just go away.

[SVT32V]

I don't know if it's a cover-up, or simply horrible management. It's not like the Cobalt/HHR/ION are quality cars, there are other issues with those things....they're pretty rife with quality issues.

How many of those other issues can be linked with 12 deaths? That is also the problem here.

[Byteme]

I don't know if it's a cover-up, or simply horrible management. It's not like the Cobalt/HHR/ION are quality cars, there are other issues with those things....they're pretty rife with quality issues.

It seems pretty hard to fuck up something as simple as an ignition switch, unless the manufacturer is intent of engineering every last penny out of the price by specifying marginal components. I remember years and years ago (60's -70's) concerns about failing ignition switches because people were sticking what seemed like pounds and pounds of crap on their key chains.  The advice then was Don't Do It.


How did this issue go from it's beginning to today, an 11 year period?  It's GM; nuff said.


In other news GM is recalling an additional 1.7 million newer cars for unrelated problems.  The hits just keep on coming. 

[FoMoJo]

Fines are least of GM's worries

I hope they televise the hearings.  The 'bailout' hearings, a few years ago, were some of the best TV entertainment for a long time.

[Byteme]

Fines are least of GM's worries

I hope they televise the hearings.  The 'bailout' hearings, a few years ago, were some of the best TV entertainment for a long time.

Yeah, it would be interesting to see every GM manager above the line manager level telling the committee they first heard of this problem last month.

[FoMoJo]

Yeah, it would be interesting to see every GM manager above the line manager level telling the committee they first heard of this problem last month.

Those Senators can be pretty mean.  At the bailout hearings I thought Rick Wagoner was going to break down in tears.

[Mustangfan2003]

Speaking of which I still find it funny that they seemed to have taken more of a beating than the banks, who are the ones that really screwed things up.  Oh well I guess the banks give out more political donations. 

[Xer0]

Wouldn't this be considered part of "old" GM or something?  Isn't that like the super GM cop-out of every responsibility possible?

[FoMoJo]

Wouldn't this be considered part of "old" GM or something?  Isn't that like the super GM cop-out of every responsibility possible?

Good point.  However, the new CEO is bending over backwards apologizing for it.  However, they may use that to try and get sympathy from the lawmakers and public.

[Byteme]

Good point.  However, the new CEO is bending over backwards apologizing for it.  However, they may use that to try and get sympathy from the lawmakers and public.

I can see the hearings now.  The CEO is under oath, a senator states.  "There are only two central burning issues here.  How much did the CEO know and when did she stop knowing it."

I wouldn't be surprised if this blows up big time and she takes the fall on behalf of GM management.



Wild theory time:

Maybe GM saw this coming and appointed a woman CEO in the faulty belief that a woman would seem more sincere with their apologies and congress would be less likely to savage a dame.  Her public statements on this issue have come across as more touchy-feely than you would have gotten from any man.

[FoMoJo]

I can see the hearings now.  The CEO is under oath, a senator states.  "There are only two central burning issues here.  How much did the CEO know and when did she stop knowing it."

I wouldn't be surprised if this blows up big time and she takes the fall on behalf of GM management.



Wild theory time:

Maybe GM saw this coming and appointed a woman CEO in the faulty belief that a woman would seem more sincere with their apologies and congress would be less likely to savage a dame.  Her public statements on this issue have come across as more touchy-feely than you would have gotten from any man.

It may end up that women will empathize with her situation and insist that the next car the family buys must be GM.

[Byteme]

It may end up that women will empathize with her situation and insist that the next car the family buys must be GM.

I think GM was checking off boxes when she got the job.


New Corvette marketed.  Check

New Pickup design in production.  Check!

Female CEO.  Check!  "See, no glass ceilings here.  Look how progressive GM has become."

[Soup DeVille]

It may end up that women will empathize with her situation and insist that the next car the family buys must be GM.

I seriously doubt enough women know who the GM CEO is to make a significant impact on sales. And those that do, well, I really don't know what their reaction to it would be.

[Galaxy]

Wouldn't this be considered part of "old" GM or something?  Isn't that like the super GM cop-out of every responsibility possible?

I read something about this. GM had to detail very precisely all the liabilities of "old GM." This was not listed, if they really did know about this the bankruptcy process was fraudulent.

[FoMoJo]

A voice from the past...

Auto safety advocate Nader blames culture at GM for recall crisis

Longtime auto safety advocate Ralph Nader thinks Toyota Motor Corp. got off easy with its $1.2 billion fine — and that General Motors Co.'s most recent recall woes are the result of the Detroit automaker's entrenched bureaucratic culture.

Nader, now 80, rose to prominence in 1965 when his book "Unsafe at Any Speed" criticized automakers for building unsafe cars. He has done battle with GM on and off for nearly a half-century.

Nader said the govern :heated:ment's decision to defer criminal prosecution with Toyota for misleading the public, regulators and Congress didn't do enough.

"Toyota got what it wanted... None of their officials are prosecuted and (Toyota) didn't have to plead guilty, which would have enhanced the civil product liability litigation," Nader said in an interview Thursday.

He said the $1.2 billion Toyota agreement won't frighten GM.

"Even though it sounds like a lot of money — even for a big company — I don't think GM's scared of that one," said Nader, who expects GM will eventually have to pay similar fines in a similar agreement like Toyota, though he says there is still a lot unknown about GM's handling of the issue.

Toyota spokesman Ed Lewis declined to comment on Nader's remarks, but pointed to a statement Toyota released this week in which the company's top U.S. lawyer, Christopher Reynolds, said reaching the deal "while difficult, is a major step toward putting this unfortunate chapter behind us."

Nader believes GM's culture was to blame for delays in recalling cars.

"Based on my experience with GM, I think it was the bureaucracy," Nader said, saying that at one point GM had 18 levels of management between the factory floor and the CEO. "They have all these committees and they overlap, and that sets up passing the buck."

Nader said the damage from failing to replace a $2 to $5 part could be so massive that he darkly joked, "It could almost be a case of industrial espionage. It doesn't make sense — except when you break it down into bureaucratic motivations."

GM spokesman Jim Cain said the automaker has admitted it made mistakes and is committed to getting to the bottom of what went wrong. He noted that CEO Mary Barra has named a new vice president for global safety and vowed more changes to how it approaches safety issues. He said the company's culture has changed.

Nader said he hopes one outcome of the GM recall investigation will be a strengthening of auto safety legislation, including boosting maximum fines for failing to recall vehicles on time. Fines were hiked to $35 million in 2012 — double the old limit — but are far below the $250 million proposed in Congress in 2010.

Nader also says NHTSA needs much stronger authority to issue urgent recalls if automakers refuse to do so.

He said NHTSA's failure to spot the GM ignition switch issue is because the agency had a "culture of timidity... of sitting down and talking and letting the lawyers of the auto companies decide."

Cars are a lot safer than when he wrote his book, Nader said. But he said NHTSA "has been browbeaten" by members of Congress and not been aggressive enough in its handling of safety investigations.

He said NHTSA's auto safety budget is a "starvation budget." Safety advocates have been pressing since 2010 to convince the administration to dramatically boost the size of the team that investigates safety defects — currently around 60 people.

NHTSA didn't comment directly on Nader's comments but has repeatedly defended its aggressive investigations that result in millions of vehicles recalled annually by automakers.

[Byteme]

I think Nadar made a lot of good points regarding the GM culture side of the problem.

[GoCougs]

Nadar's 1965 book was a fraud and a travesty, and just the general subject of government regulation of safety is a colossal joke (a big part of that joke are CAFE standards) and now we get to add the hilarity of watching government navigating this without throwing GM into a 2nd bankruptcy.

As to this issue I don't buy it. Too many keys on a keyring ruins the ignition switch; plus, should the car shut off inadvertently it doesn't automatically blow up - steering and brakes will work just fine. Throw in some well publicized "theories" and we get a replay of the non-issue of the Toyota and Audi unintended acceleration. Shame, but that's the cost of doing business with the average American under the auspices of government.

[JWC]

NBC or CNN showed that the small pin that locks the key cylinder in place was too short---replacement ones are longer and don't allow the cylinder to inadvertently move backward and shut down the engine.

[GoCougs]

NBC or CNN showed that the small pin that locks the key cylinder in place was too short---replacement ones are longer and don't allow the cylinder to inadvertently move backward and shut down the engine.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is an issue and/or if the ignition switch is more vulnerable to having a billions keys hanging from it but I remain extremely skeptical that this is gonna cause hundreds of deaths.

[MX793]

As to this issue I don't buy it. Too many keys on a keyring ruins the ignition switch; plus, should the car shut off inadvertently it doesn't automatically blow up - steering and brakes will work just fine. Throw in some well publicized "theories" and we get a replay of the non-issue of the Toyota and Audi unintended acceleration. Shame, but that's the cost of doing business with the average American under the auspices of government.

If the engine shuts down, there's enough reserve in the brake booster for one, maybe two, applications of the brakes before power brake assist is lost.  I'm going to guess that the ABS system gets deactivated.  However, you probably aren't going to need much from the brakes if the car shuts down when in gear because of the sudden onset of engine braking.  The steering will be functional, but driving a car after the power steering is gone requires considerably more effort.  For someone who has never experienced it and is used to being able to steer the car with finger-tip pressure, it may well feel like the steering wheel has locked up.  Therein lies the problem:  many people don't know how to react in the event of a vehicular malfunction (stuck throttle, stalled engine, loss of power steering or brake assist, loss of brakes).  And even some that do "know" what the correct response should be don't necessarily respond that way when under the stress of reacting to a vehicular emergency when they experience one.  I can't say I wouldn't choke if I was closing on a bunch of stopped cars and found my brakes no longer worked at all, I can certainly tell you what someone should do under such a scenario when not under duress.  It takes a fair bit of practice/experience to develop the muscle memory required to respond to a sudden, emergency situation and most people are unlikely to have experienced any of the aforementioned scenarios even once in a controlled environment, or otherwise.  It's kind of like driving in snow.  Someone who's used to it doesn't panic when their car slides around a bit in the snow.  They know to pump their brakes, turn into a skid, etc...  Someone who's never experienced it tends to choke and crash (or abandon their car in the middle of the highway in favor of walking home...).  I'm not at all surprised that people would crash their cars if the ignition suddenly shut off.

[FoMoJo]

^^Quite true.

If you've ever had your engine quit when driving on the passing lane of a multi-lane expressway with traffic moving at 100-130kph, you'll know just how quickly mass traffic chaos occurs.  It's not just how you react, it's how those around you react when a vehicle in front of them suddenly lurches to a halt...sans break lights...and they've got no place to go except up your bumper or into the guy in the next lane.

[hotrodalex]

When I had my Saturn the engine randomly died one morning. I just flipped on the flashers and went to the side of the road (forgot that I could restart the engine with it in neutral, thought it had to be in park). No big deal, nobody died.

[FoMoJo]

When I had my Saturn the engine randomly died one morning. I just flipped on the flashers and went to the side of the road (forgot that I could restart the engine with it in neutral, thought it had to be in park). No big deal, nobody died.

Circumstances.  It makes all the difference.

[GoCougs]

If the engine shuts down, there's enough reserve in the brake booster for one, maybe two, applications of the brakes before power brake assist is lost.  I'm going to guess that the ABS system gets deactivated.  However, you probably aren't going to need much from the brakes if the car shuts down when in gear because of the sudden onset of engine braking.  The steering will be functional, but driving a car after the power steering is gone requires considerably more effort.  For someone who has never experienced it and is used to being able to steer the car with finger-tip pressure, it may well feel like the steering wheel has locked up.  Therein lies the problem:  many people don't know how to react in the event of a vehicular malfunction (stuck throttle, stalled engine, loss of power steering or brake assist, loss of brakes).  And even some that do "know" what the correct response should be don't necessarily respond that way when under the stress of reacting to a vehicular emergency when they experience one.  I can't say I wouldn't choke if I was closing on a bunch of stopped cars and found my brakes no longer worked at all, I can certainly tell you what someone should do under such a scenario when not under duress.  It takes a fair bit of practice/experience to develop the muscle memory required to respond to a sudden, emergency situation and most people are unlikely to have experienced any of the aforementioned scenarios even once in a controlled environment, or otherwise.  It's kind of like driving in snow.  Someone who's used to it doesn't panic when their car slides around a bit in the snow.  They know to pump their brakes, turn into a skid, etc...  Someone who's never experienced it tends to choke and crash (or abandon their car in the middle of the highway in favor of walking home...).  I'm not at all surprised that people would crash their cars if the ignition suddenly shut off.

Brakes still work without vacuum boost (engine off) it's just harder to press the pedal. There is no engine braking in a traditional torque converter automatic transmission-equipped car (which the vast majority of these and all cars are) without fluid pressure (engine off). One very telling issue is I can't find descriptions of the accidents and it seems the furthest GM is going is saying heavy key rings damaged the ignition switches over time. I'm sure it sucks if it happens but I'm not convinced that it resulted in hundreds of deaths.

[GoCougs]

^^Quite true.

If you've ever had your engine quit when driving on the passing lane of a multi-lane expressway with traffic moving at 100-130kph, you'll know just how quickly mass traffic chaos occurs.  It's not just how you react, it's how those around you react when a vehicle in front of them suddenly lurches to a halt...sans break lights...and they've got no place to go except up your bumper or into the guy in the next lane.

Brake lights still work with the engine and/or ignition off.

[FoMoJo]

Brake lights still work with the engine and/or ignition off.

Not if you don't apply them.  When your engine dies in the midst of high speed traffic, the last thing you want to do is stop the car; at least until you make your way to the side of the road.

[Soup DeVille]

Not if you don't apply them.  When your engine dies in the midst of high speed traffic, the last thing you want to do is stop the car; at least until you make your way to the side of the road.

The the car doesn't "lurch sans brake lights" either.

Its happened to me several times when the engine has died in traffic. At most it's been an inconvenience to other drivers.