GM News: General Motors Fires More Than 10 People Over Fraudulent Emission Testing In India

[William Maley]

William Maley

Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com

July 30, 2013

In India, General Motors hasn't issued a recall since 1995. That trend ended this past week as GM announced the recall of 114,000 Chevrolet Tavera utility vehicles built from 2005 to 2013 and are equipped with the 2.5L and 2.0L engines. The reason? According to India's Economic Times via Automotive News, GM employees deliberately fudged emission inspections to meet the standards.

"Over a period of time some employees of the company engaged in the practice of identifying engines with lower emission which were fine-tuned and kept aside to be used for installation on vehicles during inspection," said GM in a letter sent to Indian regulators on July 18th. GM also admits that the reported weight of certain models were "manipulated" to meet lest stringent emission standards.

Now GM has halted the sales of Tavera 2.5L and 2.0L and says they and that the company "has since identified a solution to the issues and performed the required engineering validation, and is awaiting regulatory approvals." GM also fired a number of employees at GM Powertrain this week. Sources at the company say one of the employees fired is Sam Winegarden, GM's vice president for global engine engineering. Winegarden joined the company in 1969. He is known for overseeing oversaw the Northstar V8 and premium V6 engine programs and became the VP of global engine engineering in 2004.

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required), The Economic Times of India

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

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[G. David Felt]

WOW, what an ugly little black eye and the end of a career for a life time employee. A 44yr career down the toilet. he is roughly 66/67 years old if he joined right out of college. At this point I would say no one will touch him and he is officially retired. He also could have been the sacrificial lamb for a hidden problem that until now GM has ignored due to the way India does business.

Interesting that for a man who oversaw the Northstar V8 and Premium V6 they could not find a emissions solution sooner to these little 4 bangors? Something smells here.

[daves87rs]

Why, I wonder....

[Drew Dowdell]

How can the 2.0 and 2.5 perform that much different emissions wise in India? What is different about them?

[loki]

i'd guess it's gasoline refinery inconsistancies played a part...?

[G. David Felt]

No, I think pure greed of if we can get away with spending less on emission hardware, we can make more profit. My gut tells me this. Any place a company can get away with a bribe to not have to have a higher cost of building they will do it.

Like Drew, I do wonder what Ford would say as to why it is harder in India than anywhere else.