What’s clear is that GM management (Altman) refused to change the switch design based on cost despite the reports of accidental shutoffs, accidents, and deaths in which the switch was implicated.
I think Ray Degiorgio was actually trying to do the right thing by changing the switch design on the sly, because as the guy who originally designed the switch, he probably had a conscience, unlike Altman. But he had to do it in such a way that management (Altman, etc) wouldn’t know about it.
DeGiorgio tried to hide the switch redesign, and lied about it under oath in one of the civil suits, but he acted more ethically IMO than Altman. At least DeGiorgio was trying to do the right thing. Altman cared only about the bottom line.
What's clear is that GM management (Altman) refused to change the switch design based on cost despite the reports of accidental shutoffs, accidents, and deaths in which the switch was implicated.
This whole thing sounds like the Pinto all over again. Management KNEW that there would be deaths based on the design of the gastank. But the cost to redesign would be more then what they’d have to pay out to potential victims. Seems like GM didn’t learn from that lesson.
What amazes me is that GM actually had memos on this. What the car companies learned from the Pinto disaster…is that any communication like this goes through their lawyers. So that if someone goes snooping around…they won’t be able to get their hands on the documents because of Attorney–client privilege.
Toyota has become very pro-active in their recalls. Just got notice that my 2007 Corolla might have a problem with the |spiral cable| which may be damaged by the when the steering wheel is turned and the, POTENTIALLY, prevent the airbag from deploying in a crash.
The car will go in in the next few months to have this fixed. Toyota does not mention costs to them since being proactive is always the best course of action. GM has yet to learn this.
No point whipping a dead horse. We’ll just see where it goes. But when you use the term “management”, you have to remember that in a company the size of GM there are thousands of managers and many management “silos”, so its not just a groups of 7 or 8 sitting around smoking cigars. Some know some don’t and some have good and bad priorities and some are short sighted.
I will say that GM has had recalls in the past. Don’t know how much prompting was required but years ago seat belts were replaced on our Olds, no hassle at all. Within the last couple of years there was a recall on the G6 for the parking paul or something, and that’s just with stuff I own. So it does happen. I suspect Toyota is trying to clean their act up now after their crushing sales drop witht he unintended acceleration and just trying to get customers back.
I can understand this problem slipping by the testing of a vehicle. On the test track, I would bet that there is just the ignition key which doesn’t have a big key chain of other keys attached. However, when the problem came to light when it was in service, then a recall should have been issued. Many motorists aren’t savvy enough to realize the problem.
Interestingly, the problem with heavy key rings causing ignition switch failure has been around for decades. I remember reading one of the episodes “Tales From the Model Garage” back in the 1950s where the husband kept having the engine die and was not able to restart the car, but his wife had no problems. His wife, who was rather daffy, wanted the garage to put heavier springs on the left side of the car because she thought her overweight husband was throwing the car out of balance. The problem was solved when the car stalled and blocked traffic during a morning rush hour. Gus Wilson was called to the scene with his wrecker. The husband found another ride to his work and just as Gus was maneuvering his wrecker to tow the car, the wife shows up, jumps in the car and starts it right up. Gus finally figured it out when he had the car in the shop and was checking it with the engine running and hung is drop light from the key and the engine immediately died. He then realized the husband had big key ring with a lot of keys while the wife had just the ignition key on her key ring. These “Tales From the Model Garage” were supposedly based on true experiences, so I think the ignition switch problem has been with us for a while.
@Bing, I hear you, it’s a big company with many managers, and most of them probably had nothing to do with the current issue. Agreed. When I said “management” I meant specifically those in the chain of command on this issue.
The problem is a culture based on a bottom-line accounting mindset of trying to wring every last penny in cost out of a product, at the expense of safety and quality, instead of a “customer first” mindset that says it’s not OK to knowingly produce a defective product that kill customers in order to save a measly half million bucks.
Mary Barra is trying to change that culture by implementing a “Speak Up For Safety” program and weeding out people who don’t get with the program, but it won’t happen overnight.
@triedaq, the strange thing is, this switch has had numerous complaints where the key did not turn at all. Many owners have reported problems with the switch cutting off even in the “run” position. There was an article just a few days ago about a guy whose Cobalt ignition cut out while he was taking a curve at 40 mph. The car hit a bump, the ignition cut out, the car spun out and hit the guard rail. The key was still in the “run” position.
I have to believe that a lot of people further up the chain were in the loop on this and at this point GM is circling the wagons and throwing a few sacrificial lambs out.
Wonder what is going to happen if those guys file lawsuits and the legal push and shove comes down to putting Barra and others under oath during depositions…
The people likely to pay that 1.3 billion dollars are going to be the mechanics and customers. My understanding is that GM (per the usual) is going to pay .4 hours labor for a switch change, coding the switch to the PCM, etc, etc. This means mechanics will get short shrift.*
Parts prices will go up, MSRPs of new cars will rise a bit, warranty labor reimbursements on other jobs will be cut, etc.
*There will probably be X number of disgruntled mechanics who will be fed up with getting hosed on the labor so the new replacement switch may end up in the dumpster and the warranty repair order run through the system as “Completed”. Sad but true…
More interesting stuff from Jalopnik.com, where they reviewed 600+ pages of GM documents just released by Congress:
One of the new pieces of info is that GM engineer Brian Stouffer "spent two years in 2011 and 2012 trying to sort out the problem behind the Cobalt ignition switches only to receive significant pushback, inaccurate data and a lack of cooperation from his co-workers. "
“Stouffer tried to figure out why airbag issues dropped off after the 2008 model year even though he could find no documented changes to the cars. We now know this is because GM engineers quietly changed the faulty part in 2006 but did not change its part number.”
So the lack of a part number change did in fact hamper an internal investigation for 2 years.
Another new piece if information is that “The suspended chief Cobalt engineer was the one who switched the car off with his knee.”
"Remember how it came out a few months ago that a top GM engineer first encountered the ignition switch problem with the Cobalt way back in 2004? It turns out that engineer was none other than Gary Altman, the program engineering manager for the Cobalt in 2004 and 2005, and one of two engineers currently suspended with pay as part of the investigation. "
"According to these documents, Altman inadvertently turned off the car after bumping it with his knee. However, he later testified in the lawsuit filed by the family of Cobalt victim Brooke Melton that he did not feel the car was unsafe, and was the one who rejected a fix for the ignition switch because it was too expensive and would take too long. "
This off topic so skip if you want but Jesmed reminded me, and I concur with the attempt to squeeze every last nickel with redesigned parts. I was driving home in my 09 G6 one night in the rain and my wipers quit. Thought they might have just stuck but no, motor ran but no wiper action. I had 30 miles to go and it really wasn’t too bad with the wind blowing the windshield pretty clear. So when I got home I pulled the wiper transmission to see what was wrong. These were redesigned to use a plastic socket that a ball fits into. With some wear, it can just pop out like a shoulder coming out of joint. Its probably a 50 cent part but of course you have to buy the whole $80 transmission. At any rate, the arm points down in the socket instead of up so if the socket lets go the arm drops. It could have been just turned around so that the arm couldn’t drop out.
While waiting a couple days for the part to come in, I just fashioned a metal clip to hold the arm in and it worked fine. It just seemed that for a part as critical as windshield wipers, it could have been designed with a little more robust joint than a plastic socket. At any rate I kept the old one that has a couple good sockets on it so I can just pop a new plastic socket on if it happens again. I suspect the same design is used on a number of GM cars and maybe other manufacturers. I was just surprised that it had been made so cheap compared to the old days when a wiper mechanism would never fail without some warning.
GM is now discussing settlements with over 300 accident plaintiffs:
“General Motors has begun preliminary talks that could potentially lead to cash payments for hundreds of victims of accidents involving cars recalled for a faulty ignition switch, numbers far beyond the 13 deaths and 32 accidents that the company has linked to the defect.”
So this is a much bigger problem than the 32 accidents they have publicly admitted to, and are hoping that payoffs will make those others go away.
“Biased against Barra? Did you read the article? It says she personally had no knowledge of the problem until recently and is acting quite capably to manage it. It doesn’t blame her at all, and portrays her as acting quickly and decisively when she learned about the problem. Which in my book is praise for a CEO.”
Merkel has her own spies. She grew up under the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit. She is no little Munchkin in the world of statecraft. She is very clever. Especially when compared to Obama.
German corporations are heavily invested in Russia, especially Siemens, probably 10 times the investment of the US. Germany gets about 30% of its natural gas from Russia. Germans do not have fond memories of the Ukraine from WWII. Germans will not sacrifice for the Ukraine,
How do I think the financial boycott of Russia will end up? I think I know. Might makes right east of the Oder. Stay tuned.
First, it’s unrealistic that one person (Mary Barra) will change a fossilized near-century-old culture at GM, even if GM attempts to image itself as a “new” and “progressive” company.
Second, it’s reasonable for the skeptics to suspect Ms Barra would have had some awareness of this. Before she became CEO, Ms Barra was an Executive Vice President responsible for global purchasing and supply, as well as global product development. The ignition switch issue would have come under her responsibility.
In her defense, even if she knew something about the ignition switch issue, this was probably just one of many ongoing GM blunders that needed correction, and she had her hands full. For all we know, she may have tried to correct the problem without success. She has (and had) a frustrating job, and I hope she is paid reasonably well for it. She deserves our empathy.
This isn’t just a fault of a corporation, either. NHTSA is a well-funded entity, and they let us all down by not requiring a recall after so many people were killed or injured.
I have had nothing but trouble w/ the ignition switch on my 04, Vue. They have recalled many GM models , but not mine. The D.O.T is checking my complaint but no solution. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.
The thing that strikes me about this issue is how far it has come to triggering a recall. The number of incidences has been fairly small compared to the past. Pareto principle?
"General Motors Co. (GM) will pay a record $35 million fine as part of the U.S. government’s investigation into how it handled the recall of 2.59 million small cars over faulty ignition switches, the Transportation Department said.
GM’s agreement with regulators includes “significant and wide-ranging internal changes” to how it reviews safety issues and decides on recalls, the department said in a statement."
