GM Recall: Feds Can’t Even Control Their Own Company Let Alone Toyota
By Richard West on March 5, 2010, 6:31 amWhile Congress continues its public excoriation of Toyota over problems with braking systems that have led to massive recalls, problems at GM are receiving scant notice in Washington. A fault with steering systems in several GM models including the Chevy Cobalt and the Pontiac GF has GM quietly recalling 1.3 million vehicles. Since the rescue packages for GM and Chrysler last year, the U.S. government has been the majority stakeholder in GM.
A Troubling Double Standard
While news of the GM recall broke widely, Congress held a third session of hearings into the brake problems at Toyota. Instead of addressing the issues at GM, the company that they are the de facto bosses of, the House Main Oversight Committee continued its investigation into Toyota, taking testimony from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on a plan to mandate special brakes in all vehicles. The committee announced further plans to continue probing Toyota.
Don’t Look At Us
The steering fault has been implicated in at least 14 crashes, but General Motors (NYSE:GM) denies any responsibility. According to the BBC News, GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz would rather point the finger outside the company. “This is a case where, yes, we would blame a partially Toyota-owned supplier,” he said. Given the fact that this problem occurs in cars going back to model year 2005, it is troubling that GM did not address the problem sooner, no matter who their supplier is.
A Sense Of Deja Vu
Critics lambasted Toyota (NYSE:TM) for their bungled response to the braking crisis. In a pattern eerily similar, GM seems to be sugar-coating problems. GM warns drivers that if their steering fails, “greater steering effort may be required.” But they add that the cars can still be “safely controlled.” They suggest that drivers stop, turn off their cars, and wait awhile before continuing.
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Just the title of this article is a dumb assessment. Say no more.
I question why you would bother to write it unless you are a Toyota owner. 14 crashes, 1 minor injury out of 1.5 Million cars over the failure of a small electric motor after 4 years of working properly. This small failure does not make the car unsafe – just harder to steer at speeds under 15 miles per hour. By the way, if you are a US taxpayer, YOU own a part of GM, not the government.
all recalls are not created equal. an occasional loss of power steering (not loss of steering) at low speeds warranted the press it got. it pales in comparison to runaway acceleration that has caused hundreds of accidents and multiple deaths.
Even though this article’s point is to basically attack the current administration, it does address the same points that actually Chevrolet Cobalt owners who have had to deal with the actual problem that the recall addresses, like myself have been asking for a long time now. My car’s power steering motor started going out in April of last year, research conduced by me on the internet uncovered that GM has known about this since April 2007, when it issued an internal memo outlining the problem and solutions for fixing it.
The Cobalt owners have been demanding a recall for an obvious manufacturing flaw, since before I even knew of the problem. An online petition was even started, and it finally took the safety regulators launching an investigation at the urging of these customers back in February to prompt a response from GM. Having lived with this problem for nearly a year, the fix was to replace the steering column for nearly $2000, “greater steering effort may be required.” at parked to about 10 mph means having to pull the steering wheel in the direction you want to go with all of your might, and leaving quite a bit of room for a much wider turn radius, parallel parking is flat out. Once you start moving at a decent speed it is easier to turn, just like manual steering; however, in order to keep the natural tendency for the wheels to follow the imperfections in the pavement you have to have hold tight with both hands on the wheel just to keep it straight without swerving. Rain and snow make this even more difficult, as can be imagined.
GM not only ignored us over the past three years, it happily took peoples money to fix what was their fault, now they try to put the best face they can on this, and act like nothing happened, or blaming Toyota for the problems. I was there, and I knew how it felt to have this company ignore the pleas of it’s customers who put faith in their product, all the while knowing that they knew exactly what was going on.
I don’t know what happened with Toyota; however, I do know how GM ignored their own problems for three years until they were finally forced into action, and frankly the congress has turned a blind eye to GM’s actions, while ripping Toyota a new one. That’s not the way that GM needs to be treating it’s customers, and this continuing to ignore one car maker’s mistakes while punishing another is no way to treat your constituents.
Double standard? How do you figure? Maybe the ‘Feds’ didn’t have to go after GM because after 14 crashes, GM has announced a recall in a prudent and responsible manner! Toyota knowingly allows it’s customers to drive for years on end with defective vehicles and the unintended acceleration recall is NOT the only example. Does the article writer not see the difference here?!! A double standard would only apply if GM followed Toyota’s protocol of denial, blaming the customers and only taking any tangible action after being forced to by the NHTSA YEARS after State Farm insurance had recognized a problem, made obvious by a higher claim payout ratio due to unexplained UA type accidents. State Farm saw this abnormality involving Toyota products as early as 2004 and informed NHTSA, and by 2007 had notified NHTSA again and raised premium rates on Toyota products. Were talking about 1000′s of incidents and thousands more likely unreported! Is State Farm part of the ‘the GM/Fed conspiracy’ against Toyota too?! This is not about a conflict of interest Federal gov’t conspiracy or that Toyota has a lower than average general complaint ratio – It’s about knowingly allowing customers to drive unsafe vehicles for years, and 10 times more than the industry average of unintended acceleration complaints with 50 plus dead and counting. Virtually no one has been killed in UA type accidents in all other brands combined! The only conspiracy here is the big toyota engineering book of secrets and their protection of Event data recorder content, keeping it more confidential than the US gov’t kept the atomic bomb recipe in the 40′s! Why did Toyota send only 2 cars and no trucks/suvs for the new 010 IIHS roof standard test when everybody else sent all their stuff? Ask the ex head Toyota attorney who is ratting out Toyota on their abuse of the justice system withholding evidence and rigging thrown out hearings as to settle with plantiff with confidentiality agreements!
The dumb ass Toyotobots here in Canada are so stupid that they believe in the US gov’t GM conspiracy and that Toyota can do know wrong – so sales are up 25% in Canada! Right now I am ashamed to be Canadian – though not at all surprised!
Toyota lover and believer and mad about the witch hunt
from NHTSA Database…recalls since 2000
Toyota 678
Ford 2,278
GM 4,233
Honda 952
Luxury recalls since 2000
Lexus 114
Acura 184
Audi 146
BMW 532
Mercedes 300