BUSINESS DAY In Another Blow, G.M. Recalls 3 Million More Defective Cars By BILL VLASIC and DANIELLE IVORYJUNE 16, 2014 General Motors said on Monday that it would recall 3.36 million defective cars worldwide, another low point in the seemingly endless safety crisis that has engulfed the nation’s largest automaker. Once again, the problem had to do with keys that could suddenly turn off engines and deactivate air bags — a problem similar to the deadly defect that G.M. failed to address for more than a decade before it began recalling 2.6 million small cars in February. G.M. has linked at least 13 deaths and 54 crashes to that defect. The announcement came two days before Mary T. Barra, G.M.’s chief executive, is scheduled to appear before a House subcommittee investigating the small-car defect.Lawmakers are eager to question Ms. Barra about how G.M. will change its corporate culture in the aftermath of the initial recall and an internal investigation. But Monday’s announcement is likely to produce another round of sharp questions like those Ms. Barra faced in April.“This latest recall raises even more questions about just how pervasive safety problems are at G.M.,” said the Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan. “This is not just a Cobalt problem. Drivers and their families need to be assured that their cars are safe to drive.” In its announcement on Monday, G.M. said it would revamp or replace ignition keys on seven models because of a faulty key design that has been used for years. The company said that keys laden with extra weight — such as additional keys or objects attached to a key ring — could inadvertently switch the vehicle’s engine off if the car struck a pothole or crossed railroad tracks. G.M. said it was aware of eight accidents and six injuries related to the defect. As early as December 2000, drivers of the Chevrolet Impala and the other newly recalled cars began lodging complaints about stalling with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, according to federal records reviewed by The New York Times. “When foot is taken off accelerator, car will stall without warning,” one driver of a 2000 Cadillac Deville told regulators in December 2000.“Complete electrical system and engine shutdown while driving,” another driver of the same model said in January 2001. “Happened three different times to date. Dealer is unable to determine cause of failure.” Alan Adler, a G.M. spokesman, said the vehicles recalled on Monday had different ignition switches and systems from those in the recalled Chevrolet Cobalts and Saturn Ions. The vehicles covered include the Buick Lacrosse, model years 2005-9; Chevrolet Impala, 2006-14; Cadillac Deville, 2000-05; Cadillac DTS, 2004-11; Buick Lucerne, 2006-11; Buick Regal LS and RS, 2004-5; and Chevrolet Monte Carlo, 2006-8. The Chevrolet Impala is the only model still in production and is sold to daily rental fleets as the Impala Limited. To fix the problem, the company said, it will add an insert that covers slots on the ignition key. The insert instead substitutes a hole at the end of the key.In the Cobalt’s case, G.M. is putting in entirely new ignition systems. The latest safety actions continue to add to the mounting financial toll for recall-related repairs. G.M. said it expected to take recall-related charges of $700 million in the second quarter, an increase of $300 million from an earlier projection. Including the latest costs, G.M. will have spent $2 billion on recalls in the first half of this year. The company has made dozens of recalls since its admission in February that it failed to repair defective Cobalts and other small cars for years, despite multiple internal studies and inquiries about the vehicles stalling while being driven. Ms. Barra has repeatedly apologized and vowed to improve the automaker’s internal safety controls. But it now appears that the problems in the Cobalt were only the tip of the iceberg as far as ignition failures. Last week, the company recalled about 510,000 Chevrolet Camaros worldwide because keys in those vehicles did not work properly. G.M. has now recalled about 6.5 million cars this year because of ignition issues. The new announcement was more evidence that G.M.’s ignition troubles are rampant throughout its product lineup. In an internal investigation paid for by G.M. and released on June 5, the former federal prosecutor Anton R. Valukas found the company rife with “organizational dysfunction” that allowed the Cobalt’s defect to go unrepaired for at least 11 years. Since she received the report, Ms. Barra has ordered the dismissal of 15 employees, including a vice president for regulatory affairs and at least three senior corporate lawyers. G.M. has also disciplined five other workers. Ms. Barra has also promised to clean up a culture in which employees avoided responsibility, failed to communicate effectively and routinely closed safety investigations without resolving problems. A House subcommittee on Wednesday is to focus on the cultural shortcomings of the company, many of which had supposedly been addressed when G.M. overhauled its management team and board of directors in the wake of its 2009 bankruptcy and $49.5 billion government bailout. “What I’m wanting to know is what are they going to do to break this culture?” said Diana DeGette of Colorado, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. When Ms. Barra first appeared before the subcommittee in April, she declined to answer many questions because the internal investigation was still going on. But at this hearing, it will be harder to avoid questions addressed in the internal report, which runs more than 300 pages and names dozens of employees who for years failed to fix the Cobalt ignition defect. Mr. Valukas will also testify at the hearing. It will be the first time he will comment publicly since the report’s release. Over the last decade, his report said, G.M.’s engineers have treated the issue of stalling as an inconvenience rather than a possible safety problem. By 2004, the engineers had received many reports of stalling caused by the ignition switch defect, the report said. But they concluded that it was not a safety issue because drivers could still maneuver the cars. The failure to understand that a stalling car might be a hazard meant that the issue was put into a category of problems for which cost was a relevant consideration. “G.M. personnel viewed the switch problem as a ‘customer convenience’ issue — something annoying but not particularly problematic — as opposed to the safety defect it was,” the report said. Barbara Ragen, who was driving her 2006 Buick Lucerne a few weeks ago near Boston when her car shut down, saw it as more than an inconvenience. She lost control of the steering and brakes. Because she was traveling at about 25 miles an hour, she said, the car came to a stop after she bumped up against the curb. Ms. Ragen said that at the time of the episode, she had nothing on her key ring except for the key and the lock fob. “Had this failure happened on the highway at 65 m.p.h.,” she said, “I shudder to think how I could have controlled the car.” Matthew L. Wald and Christopher Jensen contributed reporting. A version of this article appears in print on June 17, 2014, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: In Another Blow, G.M. Recalls 3 Million More Defective Cars. Order Reprints|Todays Paper|Subscribe
Posted on: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 04:19:12 +0000
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