Earlier this week, we told you that our colleagues at Consumer Reports were going to feature General Motors CEO Mary Barra in the magazine’s first Ask the CEO column. They are still accepting questions for Ms. Barra through today at asktheceo@cr.consumer.org, so get yours in ASAP before this opportunity shuts off like the ignition on a 2003 Chevy Cobalt. [More]
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Send Us Your Questions For GM CEO Mary Barra
July 7, 2014
General Motors CEO Mary Barra has only been on the job since January, but she’s already had to deal with an historic number of recalls, investigations by Congress and federal regulators, and seemingly endless lawsuits. We’re sure that many of you have questions you’d love to ask her; now is your chance. [More]
GM Has Officially Recalled More Vehicles In 2014 Than It Has Sold In The Last 7 Years
By 6.30.14
Pretty soon there won’t be any General Motors vehicles left on the roadways that haven’t been part of a 2014 recall. On Monday, the company announced the recall of 7.6 million vehicles in the United States – 8.4 million worldwide– most of them for the same inadvertent ignition key rotation that has been linked to at least three fatalities. [More]
GM Compensation Plan Could Pay Ignition Defect Victims $20,000 To Several Millions
By 6.30.14
How can you put a price on price on a life cut short? It’s not exactly an easy question and there really is no right answer. But General Motors’ compensation plan attempts to do so, starting the process at no less than $1 million when it comes to those who died in accidents caused by a defective ignition switch found in thousands of vehicles. [More]
Docs Show Current GM VP Aware Of Ignition Problem In 2005; Federal Grand Jury Probing Recall Delay
By 6.26.14
General Motors’ internal investigation claims that no top executives at the car company were aware of the defective ignition switch that has resulted in at least 13 deaths (and likely many more) and the recall of nearly millions of vehicles. But newly released documents from the Congressional investigation into the debacle indicate that one current GM Vice-President was made aware of the problem as early as 2005. [More]
GM Halts Sale Of Chevy Cruze Over Airbag Concerns; Recall Possible
By 6.26.14
General Motors is once again telling dealers to stop sales of existing inventory of the Chevy Cruze, which has already been the subject of a recall this year over drive shaft issues. This time, the car maker says some 33,000 of these cars could have airbags that were assembled with the wrong part. [More]
Lawmakers Not Exactly Thrilled By GM CEO Mary Barra
By 6.18.14
A lot has happened since General Motors CEO Mary Barra first appeared before lawmakers looking into the massive GM ignition switch recall tied to at least 13 deaths. The company has admitted a culture of incompetence while denying a cover-up, recalled another 3 million vehicles, and faces concerns that the total death count may be significantly higher than 13. So this morning’s hearing before a Congressional subcommittee was less friendly than Barra’s previous visit. [More]
Regulators, Manufacturers, Dealers, And Mechanics Get To Read About Car Defects — But Not Consumers
By 6.17.14
The thirteen-year-long mess of the GM ignition switch recall was, in part, a failure to see and identify patterns in the data. Over the course of a decade, individual consumers lodged complaints that, put together, could have revealed the whole problem sooner. But nobody got to look at the whole, because all of the service bulletins that carmakers like GM send to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration go into its database… and never come back out. Too bad so sad, says NHTSA, but lawmakers and auto-safety advocates are hoping to change that. [More]
GM Recalls Another Half-Million Cars For Ignition Switch Problems, But Different Ones This Time
By 6.13.14
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: General Motors has issued a recall of a half-million of its cars because if the driver’s knee hits the keys while they’re in the ignition, the key can pop out, causing the car to lose power and potentially crash. [More]
Victims Of Saturn Ion Crash Accuse GM Of Letting Driver Plead Guilty To Accident She Didn’t Cause
By 6.10.14
The driver of a Saturn Ion who pled guilty to criminally negligent homicide, and the family of her boyfriend who was killed in the 2004 crash, have sued General Motors in federal court, alleging the car maker knew of the ignition problem that caused the crash but sat and watched while the driver was prosecuted. [More]
GM Admits Incompetence In Ignition Debacle, Denies Cover-Up
By 6.5.14
This morning, General Motors CEO Mary Barra discussed the findings of the car maker’s internal report on an ignition switch defect that went without a recall for more than a decade and has resulted in at least 13 deaths. The company’s findings claim that while GM screwed up big-time, there was no attempt by executives to cover the problem up. [More]
GM Is Super Sorry It Sent Recall Notices To Families Of Crash Victims
By 6.4.14
By this point, most owners of recalled General Motors vehicles don’t need a notice from the car maker to know their ignition switches need work. One group of people who definitely don’t need reminding of this fact are the families of those who died in crashes tied to the ignition defect. [More]
Report: 74 Deaths May Be Tied To GM Ignition Defect
By 6.3.14
While General Motors has admitted that an ignition switch defect in Chevy Cobalts, Saturn Ions and other vehicles has been tied to 13 deaths, others have indicated that the number could be significantly higher than that. A new report from Reuters claims to have found at least 74 fatalities that may be related to the defective switches. [More]
Suspended GM Engineer “Forgot” He Had Bad Ignition Switch Fixed In 2006
By 5.30.14
Last year, the General Motors engineer who quietly signed off on a fix to an ignition problem that has resulted in at least 13 deaths claimed in a deposition that he had no knowledge of making this incredibly important improvement. But after Congressional investigators have turned up all sorts of evidence showing that he did indeed give the okay for this fix, the engineer reportedly says he simply forgot about it. [More]
Another 2.4 Million GM Vehicles Recalled
By 5.20.14
Because apparently every model of car made by General Motors in the last decade has something wrong with it, GM has announced another round of recalls. This time, it’s four separate recalls totaling 2.42 million vehicles in the U.S. [More]
New GM Ad: Our Cars Are No Longer “Grenade-Like” Death Traps
By 5.19.14
In the midst of a reputation-damaging string of recalls now totaling more than 11 million vehicles, General Motors is in need of an image shake-up. But the carmaker may be getting a little too honest in a new TV commercial. [More]
Video: Here’s How Easy It Is To Turn Off (And How Hard It Is To Steer) A Recalled Chevy Cobalt
By 5.16.14
Earlier today, General Motors was hit with a $35 million penalty for its decade-plus delay in recalling millions of vehicles with defective ignition switches that could be inadvertently turned off, leaving the car without power steering and braking and deactivating the air bags. GM has repeatedly stated that these cars are safe to drive because an accidentally turned-off vehicle could still be steered to safety. But is that true? [More]
GM To Pay $35 Million Fine For Botched Ignition Switch Recall
By 5.16.14
GM will be paying a record-setting $35 million fine over its completely botched decade-long ignition-switch defect and subsequent recall, the Department of Transportation announced today. [More]
