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发帖数: 29846 | 1 GM issues third recall on SUVs that can catch fire
August 7, 2014 - 7:35 PM
By TOM KRISHER, Associated Press
General Motors' troubles with safety recalls has surfaced in another case,
this time with the company recalling a group of SUVs for a third time to fix
power window switches that can catch fire.
The problem, revealed in documents posted by federal safety regulators this
week, is so serious that GM is telling customers to park the SUVs outdoors
until they are repaired because they could catch fire when left unattended.
The vehicles will be left outside for a while. Parts won't be ready until
October at the earliest, according to GM. The automaker also has ordered its
dealers to stop selling the SUVs as used cars until they are fixed.
The recall covers about 189,000 vehicles in North America, mainly from the
2006 and 2007 model years. Models affected include the Chevrolet TrailBlazer
, GMC Envoy, Buick Rainer, Isuzu Ascender and Saab 97-X. The recall was one
of six announced by GM on June 30 that covered 7.6 million vehicles.
GM is in the midst of the biggest safety crisis in its history, touched off
by the delayed recall of 2.6 million older small cars to fix faulty ignition
switches. The company has issued a record 60 recalls this year covering
nearly 29 million vehicles.
Before this year, GM had been reluctant to issue recalls, at times opting
for lower-cost fixes for safety problems. It's been fined $35 million by the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for lapses in reporting the
ignition switch problems, which it blames for at least 13 deaths.
After the ignition switch debacle, GM did a companywide safety review,
appointed a new global safety chief and pledged to recall cars quickly.
The SUV problem first appeared early in 2012 when NHTSA began investigating
consumer complaints of fires in the driver's-door switches that control
power windows.
At first, GM tried to address the issue with a "service campaign," where it
sent letters to owners telling them that water can find its way into the
switches, causing rust that can result in short circuits, overheating and
possibly fires. The campaign, which wasn't a recall, extended the warranty
and offered service only to vehicles that exhibited the problems. It was
limited to 20 states and Washington, D.C., where salt is used to clear roads
in the winter.
But in August of 2012, under government pressure, GM recalled 278,000 of the
SUVs in the cold-weather states and offered extended warranties to the rest
of the country. NHTSA kept investigating, and 10 months later, GM expanded
the recall nationwide.
By then, NHTSA and GM had received 242 complaints, including 28 about fires.
There were no injuries.
In one complaint filed with NHTSA from October of 2008, a woman reported
that the alarm sounded while her 2006 TrailBlazer was parked in her driveway
. When she looked outside, it was in flames. Firefighters put out the blaze
and told her it started in the driver's door.
"The fire burned the entire driver's side of the vehicle, a portion of the
front passenger seat and the roof," she wrote. People filing complaints are
not identified by the agency.
The fix used by GM last year was to put a protective coating around the
window switch circuit boards, which is less costly than replacing the
switches. But starting this April, GM received complaints that the switches
malfunctioned in SUVs that had been repaired. So in June, it decided to do
the third recall and replace all of the switches.
"We are recalling them because the fix that we put in did not work,"
spokesman Alan Adler said Thursday. "We're taking care of it. We're doing
the right thing."
Initially GM tried the service campaign because number of incidents was low,
he said. It was limited to the cold-weather states because salty water made
the switches corrode quickly and incidents were few in warmer states, Adler
said.
Letters notifying owners about the SUV recall should be mailed soon. Owners
will get a second letter sometime from October to December telling them when
parts are available to fix the vehicles. |
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