Late-model vehicles stretch GM's recall rolls

(Crain News Service photo)
Twelve of GM'S recalls affect the current generation 2015 Chevrolet Silverado.

By Nick Bunkley, Crain News Service

DETROIT (Oct. 20, 2014) — Ignition problems account for more than half of the 30 million recall notices going out to General Motors Co. customers this year, but the rest disproportionately involve vehicles sold in the last two years rather than defects unearthed from the bureaucracy of old GM.

An Automotive News analysis of documents filed with federal regulators shows that GM is moving faster to identify and fix problems but that many defects, especially in newer vehicles, are still reaching customers.

As of last week, 51 of GM's 78 recalls this year — including three communicated to dealers but not yet announced — cover 2014 or 2015 model year vehicles.

Twelve of the recalls affect the current generation Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, making them the most frequently recalled vehicle family. The pickups were also recalled three times last year, for a total of 15 callbacks since their introduction, which then-CEO Dan Akerson called “probably our best launch ever.”

In the U.S., GM has recalled 2.5 million 2014 vehicles and more than 150,000 from the just-begun 2015 model year, though some are counted multiple times because they are subject to more than one recall. The 2014 model year figure is equal to 86 percent of the 2.9 million vehicles that GM sold in the U.S. during the past 12 months.

“They're not all giant recalls,” said Sean Kane, president of Safety Research & Strategies in Rehoboth, Mass., “but they clearly are still having some significant issues creep into their cars that you would hope they would have caught before making their way out into the marketplace.”

The data contrast with gains in GM's quality ratings and with public perceptions — as measured by multiple consumer surveys — that the problems now being addressed largely stem from the dysfunctional, prebankruptcy era rather than ongoing issues. Early on, GM CEO Mary Barra framed the company's safety crisis as a relic of the way it used to operate, telling members of Congress that GM has “moved from a cost culture to a customer culture.”

But the numbers also support GM's assertions that it has begun treating safety issues more proactively rather than waiting for complaints and warranty claims to accumulate over time.

Fourteen of the recalls on 2014 and 2015 models cover fewer than 1,000 vehicles, and many aren't linked to any complaints submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. One pending recall for an airbag problem on the 2015 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray was initiated before most of the affected cars had even left the plant.

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“They're not all giant recalls, but they clearly are still having some significant issues creep into their cars.”

 — Sean Kane, Safety Research & Strategies _____________________________________________________________

“We're always going to put the customer's safety at the center of everything we do,” GM spokesman Alan Adler wrote in an email. “So if we find a defect, we'll move quickly to address it. If that means a recall, we'll do a recall.”

He added: “GM has revamped practically all of its product safety practices and added dozens of product investigators this year by reassigning engineers from other functions. This allows more issues to be investigated more quickly with decisions on field actions sometimes made in hours instead of weeks.”

The recalls haven't hurt GM's U.S. sales, which increased 19 percent in September from September 2013 and 4 percent in the first nine months of the year from a year earlier. That's especially notable considering that at least one-third of the vehicles recalled were current models still in production at the time, which means dealers having to quarantine inventory until repairs can be made.

Weak ignition switches and shoddy ignition cylinders accounted for nine recalls, covering 14.7 million vehicles in the U.S. and 1.8 million elsewhere. Those campaigns mostly involve vehicles from the 2003 through 2008 model years and include only one model still in production: the 2014 Chevrolet Camaro. GM has said many of the affected ignition switches were approved by one engineer, who was among 15 employees dismissed in June.

But of the 11.8 million U.S. vehicles affected by other problems, from malfunctioning airbags to faulty headlights, 56 percent are from the 2010 model year or newer, meaning they were sold after GM's 2009 bankruptcy. Twenty-one percent are from the 2014 or 2015 model year.

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This report appeared on autonews.com, the website of Automotive News, a Detroit-based sister publication of Tire Business.

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