GM News: GM Issues A Recall On 1.3 Million Vehicles On Power Steering Systems.. Again

[William Maley]

---

The last thing you want before testifying before the U.S. House is announcement of more vehicles being recalled. In the case of the General Motors, this is happening. The automaker announced this afternoon the recall of 1.3 million vehicles because of faulty electric power steering units. The units can fail with little or no warning; the steering system still works, but it takes more effort from a driver. The vehicles involved in this recall include,

• Chevrolet Cobalt: Some model year 2010 vehicles
  
• Chevrolet HHR (Non-Turbo): Some model year 2009 and 2010 vehicles
  
• Chevrolet Malibu: All model year 2004 and 2005, and some model year 2006 and model year 2008 and 2009 vehicles
  
• Chevrolet Malibu Maxx: All model year 2004 and 2005, and some 2006 model year
  
• Pontiac G6: All model year 2005, and some model year 2006 and model year 2008 and 2009 vehicles
  
• Saturn Aura: Some model year 2008 and 2009 vehicles
  
• Saturn ION: All model year 2004 to 2007 vehicles
  
• Service parts installed into certain vehicles before May 31, 2010 under a previous safety recall
  

The last item in this list is a key point to this recall. Back in 2010, GM issued a recall on Chevrolet Cobalts and Pontiac G5s built in the 2010 model year for the same problem. But the company didn't issue it on Saturn Ions built with the same part.Yahoo's Motoramic found out that NHTSA received 846 complaints of power-steering loss in 2004 to 2007 Saturn Ions. The agency opened a probe into this and was able to replicate this in a test Ion. However, NHTSA never resolved the probe.

To fix the power steering system issue, dealers will inspect and replace the affected parts for free. If you have paid to have these repairs done, GM will reimburse them. Owners of the HHR and Ion models from 2003 will get lifetime warranties for their power steering motors.

Source: General Motors, Motoramic

Press Release is on Page 2

---

GM Recalls Older Model Vehicles to Fix Power Steering

DETROIT – General Motors informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today that it would recall more than 1.3 million vehicles in the U.S. that may experience a sudden loss of electric power steering assist.

If power steering assist is lost, a message displays on the Driver Information Center and a chime sounds to inform the driver. Steering control can be maintained because the vehicle will revert to manual steering, but greater driver effort would be required at low vehicle speeds, which could increase the risk of a crash.

Models subject to safety recall are the:

• Chevrolet Malibu: All model year 2004 and 2005, and some model year 2006 and model year 2008 and 2009 vehicles
  
• Chevrolet Malibu Maxx: All model year 2004 and 2005, and some 2006 model year
  
• Chevrolet HHR (Non-Turbo): Some model year 2009 and 2010 vehicles
  
• Chevrolet Cobalt: Some model year 2010 vehicles
  
• Saturn Aura: Some model year 2008 and 2009 vehicles
  
• Saturn ION: All model year 2004 to 2007 vehicles
  
• Pontiac G6: All model year 2005, and some model year 2006 and model year 2008 and 2009 vehicles
  
• Service parts installed into certain vehicles before May 31, 2010 under a previous safety recall
  

Depending on the vehicle, GM will replace free of charge either the power steering motor, the steering column, the power steering motor control unit or a combination of the steering column and the power steering motor control unit. Customers who previously paid for repairs of these parts would be eligible for reimbursement.

In addition, 309,160 non-turbocharged Chevrolet HHRs from the 2006-2008 model years (and several hundred 2009 models) and 96,324 Saturn IONs from the 2003 model year that are not subject to these recalls will be given lifetime warranties for replacement of the electronic power steering motor.

"With these safety recalls and lifetime warranties, we are going after every car that might have this problem, and we are going to make it right," said Jeff Boyer, vice president, GM Global Vehicle Safety. "We have recalled some of these vehicles before for the same issue and offered extended warranties on others, but we did not do enough."

The 2004-2007 Saturn ION, the 2009-2010 Chevrolet HHR and the 2010 Chevrolet Cobalt are included in previously announced recalls for ignition switches that may not meet GM specification for torque performance. Repairs for the ignition switch and power steering assist may require separate dealership visits depending on parts availability.

GM expects to take a charge of up to approximately $750 million in the first quarter, primarily for the cost of recall-related repairs announced in the quarter. This amount includes a previously disclosed $300 million charge for three safety actions announced on March 17 and the ignition switch recall announced Feb. 25.

View full article

[Drew Dowdell]

Get 'em all out of the way at once I guess

[smk4565]

Pretty soon they will run out of cars to recall. They have already gone through about every Delta, Lambda and Epsilon car since 2004. The Sigma platform has somehow remained safe. I wonder what this will cost them, not only in repair costs but in loss in future sales.

[Drew Dowdell]

There is a lot of overlap on the delta recalls

[pow]

Lol Malibu Maxx.

[regfootball]

My Cobalt is likely to get raped. whatya think the resale is on my Cobalt these days?

[regfootball]

Pretty soon they will run out of cars to recall. They have already gone through about every Delta, Lambda and Epsilon car since 2004. The Sigma platform has somehow remained safe. I wonder what this will cost them, not only in repair costs but in loss in future sales.

did they basically ignore the recall process during the whole bankruptcy and bail out and the get back to profit mode after that?

And then Mary Barra is the one who gets thrown under the bus.

[G. David Felt]

Sad to see current new executives that had no control and no ability to affect the decisions get thrown around like this. They should be pulling the idiots from that time period back in front of congress and confiscating the money they took as pay during those periods. Clearly cared more about how much money they could steal from GM than the products and what would happen to others.

[hyperv6]

Sad to see current new executives that had no control and no ability to affect the decisions get thrown around like this. They should be pulling the idiots from that time period back in front of congress and confiscating the money they took as pay during those periods. Clearly cared more about how much money they could steal from GM than the products and what would happen to others.

That would be nice but things just do not work that way.

Mary has proven herself to me and many others. She has gotten out in front of this and hit it head on unlike Toyota. While GM has screwed up years ago the media is not also being fair either but they seldom are in GM's case.

I expect in 6 months this will be largely forgotten by the media and public. The cars will be repaired and the Families cases will be settled. In the end GM will have fixed their system for dealing with issues on cars and they should be the best in the industry now because of this. It was part of their culture they needed to fix and just had not gotten to it year with the new people in charge.

The redeeming factor for the new GM is this was not on the new cars and for the most will be a forgotten issue. Now if this had been the Cruze or any other new in production GM car it would have been a major disaster of biblical proportions.

[riviera74]

^QFT, hyperv6.

I call it "The Revenge of Old GM Thinking". Compromising quality and safety just to save a few pennies here and there, especially on the smaller cars, is rather sad. The good news is that the New GM has apparently stopped this stupidity. What really saddens me is that Rick Waggonner could have purged this "make it cheaper, make it common" mentality 12-13 years ago and he did not.

[G. David Felt]

Worse yet is that Delphi has testified that they knew the parts did not meet GM spec which they signed on to build to spec and then they still created the part and delivered it to GM.

Delphi needs to be pulled in front for their own lack of follow through on the contracts rather than be a pointing finger at GM.

YES OLD GM screwed up and those people should pay. Delphi also screwed up and should pay.

I agree with Hyperv6 that Mary is showing to be a good leader and leading by example by jumping on the issues to resolve and fix them rather than sweeping them under the carpet.