Connecticut Saturn owners on alert, another GM recall delayed

Consumers in Connecticut are most probably following the General Motors car recall in the news reagrding ignition switch problems. An automobile recall can be initiated by an automaker or imposed by the government. According to documents released recently, another delay was showed by GM in recalling unsafe cars. The documents also illustrate that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reacted inactively to the safety situation despite being warned by consumers and through warranty information given in by the company.

In this recent debacle, the NHTSA did not pursue a recall of the Saturn Ion compact car from model years 2004 through 2007, even though it started an investigation over two years ago and found 12 crashes and two injuries caused by a power steering failure. According to information in the newly released documents, GM waited years to recall close to 335,000 of the Saturn Ions for power steering failures even though they received thousands of complaints by consumers and over 30,000 warranty repair claims.

The Ion was one of a few GM cars included in a March 2014 recall of 1.5 million GM cars worldwide to swap out the power steering motors. That recall also inculded some older Saturn Auras, Chevrolet Malibus, and Pontiac G6s. If the power steering in cars stops working, the cars can still be steered, but with great difficulty. Drivers can be startled by the problem and lose control of the vehicles and crash, possibly suffering great personal injury or death.

Officials at GM did admit that they did not do enough regarding the power steering problem in the cars. By law, products sold to consumers must be safe.

The main responsibility of making products safe usually falls on producers and manufacturers of the product. A company must take an active approach to preventing safety problems, otherwise, like GM, the company risks being sued.

Source:  Connecticut Post, “Documents detail another delayed GM recall” Tom Krisher, Apr. 20, 2014