DETROIT -- General Motors Co. said Friday that it needs to fix the key design on nearly 512,000 late model Chevrolet Camaros.

The company is recalling the Camaros from the 2010 to 2014 model years because a driver's knee can bump the key and knock the switch out of the "run" position, causing an engine stall.

That disables the power steering and brakes and could cause the driver to lose control.

GM said Friday that it knows of three crashes and four minor injuries from the problem. A spokesman said the air bags did not deploy in the crashes, but GM hasn't determined whether the nondeployment was caused by the switches.

"Discovering and acting on this issue quickly is an example of the new norm for product safety at GM," Jeff Boyer, vice president of global safety for the Detroit-based automaker, said in the statement Friday about the Camaro recall.

GM said the Camaro switches met its specifications -- unlike those at the center of a recall this year of 2.6 million small cars. That problem has caused more than 50 crashes and at least 13 deaths.

Company spokesman Alan Adler said the problem occurs rarely and affects mainly drivers who are tall and sit close to the steering column so their knees can come in contact with the key.

The Camaro switches are different from those in the small cars with ignition switch problems. The Camaro switches, he said, were designed by a different person and meet GM standards for the amount of force needed to turn the cars on and off.

Currently the Camaro key is integrated like a switchblade into the fob, which contains the buttons that let people electronically lock doors and open the trunk. GM will replace the switchblade key with a standard one and a separate fob attached by a ring so it will dangle from the key. Adler said with the change, if the driver's knee hits the fob, it doesn't come in contact with the key.

"You can hit the key fob all day long and it's not going to have any impact on the ignition," he said.

The problem was discovered during internal testing of ignition switches after the company recalled the switches in small cars such as the Chevrolet Cobalt and Saturn Ion earlier this year, GM said. Adler said the Camaro ignition problem was the only one found in testing of all GM models.

Customers will receive letters letting them know when they can take the cars to a dealership for the free repairs.

GM knew for more than a decade that the small-car switches were faulty, yet didn't recall them until early this year. The problem has brought federal investigations, lawsuits and a $35 million fine from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In April, Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra was called before Congress to explain why the company took years to publicize the faulty ignition switches. Since then, GM has told owners of millions more vehicles to take their cars to dealers for repairs to shift cables, seat belts and other parts.

GM announced three smaller recalls Friday: the 2004-2011 Saab 9-3 convertible to fix a seat-belt retractor, covering 28,789 U.S. cars; 21,567 2012 Chevy Sonics, to fix a fractured transmission turbine shaft; and the 2014 Buick LaCrosse, for a driver's door wiring repair in 14,765 cars.

The added recalls bring the total number of vehicles recalled by the company to about 14.4 million in the U.S. and 16.5 million in North America. Earlier this year, GM passed its old U.S. full year recall record of 10.75 million vehicles set in 2004.

Information for this article was contributed by Tom Krisher of The Associated Press and by Tim Higgins and Jeff Plungis of Bloomberg News.

Business on 06/14/2014