Chevy Recalls Cruze After A Steering Wheel Falls Off (GOVT MOTORS cars already falling apart!)

Wall Street Journal ^ | April 11, 2011 | Jonathan Welsh

[Beaten Valve]

Imagine turning your car’s steering wheel, or giving it a gentle tug, and having it break away from the steering column. Now you’re speeding along holding the suddenly useless wheel.

It sounds like a vision from a cartoon, or every driver’s nightmare. And it happened to at least one driver of a 2011 Chevrolet Cruze compact car last month, and General Motors Corp. is recalling 2,100 of the cars as a result.

While the recall affects a relatively small number of vehicles, it is an unpleasant development for Chevrolet, which has been riding high on the success of its new small car. Chevrolet sold 50,205 Cruzes through the end of March. That’s well short of the 76,821 units Toyota sold of the Cruze’s main rival, the Corolla, but it is ahead of the 37,379 Cobalts Chevy sold in the same period. The Cruze replaced the Cobalt and is supposed to be a departure from that uninspired model.

In documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the car maker said it traced the problem with that particular car to a case in which the wrong wheel was put in a car and replaced later in the assembly process with the correct one. But the new wheel wasn’t attached properly, the car maker says.

When the wheel separated from the steering column, the driver was able to get the car to the side of the road safely, and the company says it has tested other cars from the production run and found no similar problems. General Motors says it believes this was an isolated incident.

[JimSEA]

I had a 1950 Chevy that the steering wheel would come off. Of course the car was sort of beat up and I took the steering wheel in at night as the car had no key and started by hot wiring. It got me to work and back in the 60s.

[Moltke]

Heh. My first thought/association. BTW, any idea what’s Russian for “Yeehaaw/Hold my vodka and watch this!”?

[dforest]

This should be all over the news if we based on the trashing of Toyota.

But it isn’t.

What do folks expect withthe fabulous union workers out on break smoking dope and drinking booze out of bottles in paper bags?

My husband’s brother was a big union worker for one of the now defunct car companies. He did the same.

[traditional1]

"Built with Craftsmanship by UNION LABOR"....can't have non-union people doing it, as they are not "qualified", and ONLY a Union worker is so highly trained, highly compensated, and is ALWAYS awakened in time to do his job or turning 3 screws an hour for his pay, no more, and the Taxpayer makes sure his Pension Fund stays always solvent!

Is this a great country, or what?

[Zhang Fei]

The Winnebago story is an urban legend. The Winnebago website actually mentions the tale:
http://www.winnebagoind.com/contact/

[JPG]

Darn it...all the good stuff turns out to be BS. Well, the LFBC for Obangi is still active!!

[Erasmus]

When that happens, all you have available is the rudder pedals and differential thrust.

≤};^)