p.s. Agree with you on Toyotas. Had two of them during the controversy and even the local mechanics, over a beer, would tell you the "fix" was basically rearranging floormats, cautioning driver, etc.
Posted on 03/13/2014 10:35:45 AM PDT by jazusamo
$5 part, 10 minutes to replace.
I’m betting it was suppressed to keep the stock price up during a time when it was controversial for the state to own a car company.
Well, if it’s good enough for you it must be good enough for any new 16 or 17 year old driver for the last 10 or more years then. /sarc
I bought a 1980 Buick Skylark brand new and it was the buggiest car I ever owned. I had a moderately steep driveway and I could put my car in neutral or reverse and push both feet against the brake pedals as hard as I could and the car eased backward down the hill. Absurd.
And that was just one of a page worth of design defects that car had. I swore I’d never own another GM car but couldn’t resist a 2003 silverado z71 for my farm in KY at a very low price and good condition. The instrument clusted went TU. It only cost $85 to get fixed (Myairbags.com) but it was another case of GM’s “Test in Prod” attitude about foisting known defects onto the public.
$5 part, 10 minutes to replace.
That kind of thing from any company is unacceptable when there’s ant kind of safety issue.
Well, if it’s good enough for you it must be good enough for any new 16 or 17 year old driver for the last 10 or more years then. /sarc
It’s GM. I wasn’t aware of the offer.
I did some business with them back in the early 2000’s. Had no idea how they were keeping the doors open at that time.
How frustrating! The article explains that the spring was not strong enough, but did not go into what activity or environment caused it to allow the ignition to go into accessory position. Was it just the act of driving that caused it, or did it take more than that?
During the campaign, Romney's advisors claimed that the GM bailout was his idea. He's not as lily-white as the article portrays.
http://www.businessinsider.com/auto-bailout-was-mitt-romneys-idea-apparently-2012-4
That said, yet another Obama scandal. Color me surprised.
The $500 discount offer on a new vehicle was just made and it’s good until April 30, in my view they’re a lot of years too late with it.
There have been umpteen articles on this fiasco already and everything can’t be covered in one article.
p.s. Agree with you on Toyotas. Had two of them during the controversy and even the local mechanics, over a beer, would tell you the "fix" was basically rearranging floormats, cautioning driver, etc.
We are literally arguing over how hard it should be to intentionally turn the key from run to acc.
I made that last statement after finally finding out what the actual problem was. There isn’t a problem. This is as political as the Toyota witch hunt.
At least, based on what I know now I see it that way. Too few deaths per 100,000 cars for this to be significant. It may be cheap to fix, but the number of cars that would need to be fixed per life saved is unbelieveable. And Zero deaths is not a practical goal.
To put it bluntly, cars would cost too much.
The service department drove it sixty-five miles and couldn’t duplicate the event. This means the problem doesn’t really exist and we and the other consumers are nuts. It happened to me one day on the freeway when a car went around me pretty fast. It just started chirping and grabbing for no reason out of the blue and of course I reacted and braked. My husband told GM that when we are rear ended because we braked for no reason, they will be sued. They told him to keep the sensors clean. Lol.
“Five nines. That’s all I’m sayin’...”
So, are you saying that morality should have no influence on business decisions?
Whoa! Slow down there, Colonel. Romney was referring to the fact that he said GM should be allowed to go through a managed bankruptcy; NOT that billions of dollars should go to protect UAW interests while bondholders got shafted. And certainly not to help coverup a deadly defect, if that is what happened.
So let me get this straight, Cuban. This behavior is only unacceptable if more people died? What’s the minimum on the body count?
GM knew of a deadly defect. NHTSA also knew, but was in bed with the company. A clear conflict of interests. Both waited years to address and then only when the media jumped on.
Say what you want, but the NY Times and the USA Today have done a great job protecting Americans while “conservative” media outlets like O’Reilly and Hannity say nothing on Fox as they take millions of GM marketing dollars.
GM knew of a deadly defect.
Not a defect, according to what I read. And also not deadly - on its own. Rather, a device that was designed to allow a certain amount of torque to move the key from position to position, under certain circumstances, could allow the driver to unintentionally turn it. And it apparently resulted in roughly a .000001% death rate among drivers.
No car is 100% safe. It would cost too much. But if the death rate for this “defect” is as low as it appears to be, and the argument can be (and has been) made that other criteria would be needed to make it “deadly”. i.e. the key turning to ACC on its own is not enough to make it deadly, since it happened to many who did not die or even lose control of their car.
Do you think cars that don’t have five point restraint systems have “deadly” seat belts? I can pretty much guarantee that fewer lives would be lost if all cars had them.
And everyone wore helmets while they drive...
I consider this a more than acceptable risk, and the stats bear it out.
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