@Docnick, I hope/believe Mary Barra will head GM in the right direction, but it’s like turning an aircraft carrier, so it will no doubt take a long time.
Quote from Docnick: “It confirms my belief that GM has not even reached to stage of the reformed drunk who is now off the wagon. I may not live to see the day when I would seriously look at a GM product again.” Unquote
You are where I am regarding Toyota after the garbage cart 1971 Toyota Corolla that I bought used in the late 1970s. Think now of buying a car designed, engineered, marketed and built by your home country’s people or are you from Canada or another country?
Believe me, I want to support US manufacturers but my Acura was made in Ohio. To me thats better than one made in Mexico. I understand not all the parts were made here but still assembly and stamping are major parts of manufacturing. So I think you just gotta be careful to look at the labels.
I would buy a Ford now, but not a GM yet.
Think now of buying a car designed, engineered, marketed and built by your home country's people or are you from Canada or another country
You mean a Toyota?
And the plot thickens:
" For example, the agency wants G.M. to identify the engineer who proposed the fix in 2005 and the executives who decided against it. It also wants G.M. to explain why it initially recalled 778,000 cars on Feb. 13 before expanding that to the 1.6 million. “To impose the criminal penalties, Justice has to find who did the criminal act,” Mr. Ditlow said. “N.H.T.S.A.'s special order has multiple questions on who the individuals were in the various acts that resulted in a 10-year delay.”
Personally I think this is a lot of huffing and puffing and congress attempting to look relevant. The article really didn’t add much to the discussion.
I believe the engineer was using one of the cars and bumped the steering column and the car shut off. I believe it was the same engineer that then started an investigation into the switches and proposed redesigning the key as a fix. This key redesign was what was shelved for whatever reason. Instead later, another engineer in dealing with Dephi in 2007, signed off on changing the switches to turn harder as a fix. Delphi initiated the change and the problem was resolved.
I believe it was another group that was also tasked with investigating all instances of air bags not deploying in a frontal crash. This resulted in the findings that it was not a significan problem with something like 30 instances of the thousands of cars. This may or may not have been a valid conclusion, but it certainly wasn’t a criminal conclusion from their investigation.
Those of us who have worked in very large organizations know how easy it is for one group to not know what is going on with another group until someone starts connecting the dots. In this case I think we have several different groups at different times working on different issues that happened to relate to each other. In a ma and pa organization of 20 people, the top executives would know the whole story but in a company of thousands its a little different.
I would rather see them pry open the doors of the IRS scandal with the same vigor.
Any engineer or manager at GM is smart enough to know that an ignition switch accidentally turning off is a safety issue. So it looks like the investigation is going to focus on whoever denied the proposed key redesign in 2005.
@WhaWho I’ve owned 5 GM cars (large and medium size) over the years when they were as good or better than the competition. My last one was an 1988 Caprice; a very nice car but difficult to tune up properly and with a leaking intake manifold gasket.
GM’s small cars are designed jointly by their Opel Division (Germany) and their Korean plant (ex Daewoo). When manufactured in the USA, many parts are imported from Korea, Brazil, Mexico and other countries. However, Congress is happy with the assembly in the USA.
By comparison, a Toyota Camry is over 85% US made, and the design is largely US as well since Japanese Camries are smaller. The same hold true for the Honda Acord; very high US content and an entirely different design from the ones sold in Europe or Japan.
These country of origin and patriotic outcries will go on forever, I imagine. Chrysler is about to import a small Jeep designed in Italy and built in Italy. It will have zero US content, and cut into the sales of the larger US built Jeeps.
A couple of things to consider, not covered here or anywhere else that I can see.
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This problem surfaced at the “Old GM” pre-bankruptcy. This is the "Old GM’s problem; did they legally shed this liability at bankruptcy?
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Interesting to note that the furor over this issue came AFTER the US government sold its GM stock. Does that timing seem suspicious to anyone but me?
Not to further defend them but focusing on the person that denied the key redesign idea seems silly. There are any number of reasons why redesigning the key might not have been seen as practical and the best resolution. As evidence is that a slight redesign of the switch in 07 to make it turn harder seemed like a much more practical solution and was adopted.
Find the guy that didn’t redesign the key and hang him? Really? Let’s find the guy that designed the Toyota accelerator. Oh yeah, that’s right, (s)he’s out of our jurisdiction.
The liability question is a legal issue but GM has been honoring warrantees and so on from the old GM. Also in the 35W bridge collapse, we collected from the new owners of the old design firm, so just going bankrupt doesn’t necessarily let you off the hook, but really, we need to be careful or no one will want to manufacture anything.
It’s not about hanging a specific person. It’s about determining whether or not GM as a company acted in compliance with US law that requires them to notify the government within a certain time period of safety-related defects, and if they didn’t, why.
Bottom line: there was a safety defect that, over 10+ years, contributed to numerous accidents and deaths. Certain people inside GM knew of the defect, but the company did nothing to fix it, beyond telling customers to remove keys from their keyring. Now GM is recalling 1.6 million vehcicles. If it’s not a safety defect, why the recall? If it is a safety defect, why does the recall come so late?
The “system” inside GM failed. Whether or not that failure rises to the level of breaking the law (requiring timely notification of safety defects) is for the lawyers and courts to decide.
We might argue whether or not 30 instances of bags failing to deploy and 13 deaths constituted a serious defect or met the definition of “numerous accidents and deaths”. Particularly when these instances were from driving fast on rough roads and failing to control the vehicle when the engine shut off. Like I said, I’ve had an engine failure a number of times and have always managed to wrestle the car safely to the side of the road. Not to argue at all the importance of a single death, but the whole thing has to be put into perspective over a number of years. Fact finding yes, witch hunt no.
The failure to control the vehicle resulted from the steering wheel locking in place when the car accidentally turned the key position to accessory due to too heavy key rings as I read it.
Im pretty sure you have to turn the key fully off to lock the steering. I’ve driven enough miles with the ignition turned off!
People always look aghast when I mention I occasionally coast engine off (not illegal where I live)…I respond that at least I KNOW how to control the car should the serpentine belt fail or engine stall. I see enough posts here from folks who lack the ability or technique to maintain control in this situation!
I just wish Mary Barra all the best, as she seems like a real breath of fresh air in a company that needs it. All too often leaders are forced out even when they had nothing to do with a problem. As for what Bob Lutz knew, hmm. He contradicts himself constantly so it’s hard to tell. He’ll say whatever makes him look good. I’ve always liked his genuine enthusiasm for card, but suspect I would strongly dislike him in person.
@Bing, a car that repeatedly shuts off randomly in traffic is unsafe even if you can steer, IMO. People have complained about these cars suddenly dying in the middle of intersections, on busy highways, onramps, etc. And those were the people who lived to tell about it and still felt the car was unsafe and complained.
There was one woman who had the car on a lease. After it died three different times in traffic she refused to drive it any more and paid a big penalty to get out of the lease. She called it a deathtrap a was afraid to drive it, with good reason.
I guess “fact finding” or “witch hunt” depends on whether or not it was your own daughter who died after GM ignored the defect in her car that caused the crash.
The Fords through the 1946 models had a locking steering column. You turned a the key to lock or unlock the steering. There was also a switch marked “On” and “Off”. When you unlocked the steering column, you could then turn the ignition switch to “On”. Once you unlocked the steering column and flipped the ignition switch to “On”, you pressed the starter button to start the engine. I don’t remember hearing about fatal ignition switch problems on these Fords. In fact, you could have a very heavy key ring and it didn’t affect the ignition switch. Maybe it is too bad that the government didn’t require all cars to have the system that these Fords used.
We as a community (I believe) have heard over the years how too much weight on a key chain can cause problems. ONE MORE EXAMPLE, EDUCATE, NOT IMPLICATE!