Larger GM cars in switch recall

Ignition defect in 3.16 million is like that in small models

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., holds up an ignition switch in April while she questions General Motors Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., holds up an ignition switch in April while she questions General Motors Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

General Motors Co., which already has recalled more than 14.4 million vehicles in the U.S. this year, is calling back about 3.16 million more because of ignition-related concerns.

The biggest U.S. automaker on Monday recalled models including Buick LaCrosse from 2005-2009; Chevrolet Impala 2006-2014; Cadillac DeVille 2000--2005; Cadillac DTS 2004--2011; Buick Lucerne 2006--2011; Buick Regal LS & GS 2004--2005; and Chevy Monte Carlo 2006--2008.

The ignition switch may inadvertently move out of the "run" position if the key is carrying extra weight and experiences some jarring event, the company said in a statement.

GM is aware of eight crashes and six injuries related to this recall, the company said.

The company is stepping up the pace of recalls as it faces multiple investigations for its slowness in dealing with 2.59 million small cars with ignition problems that the company has linked to at least 13 deaths.

The carmaker, which also called back more than 500,000 Chevrolet Camaros on Friday for an ignition related design flaw, released the results of an internal investigation into its February recall this month. The report blamed a lack of urgency in the company's engineering and legal departments in dealing with problems but found no conspiracy to hide facts.

The company agreed last month to pay a $35 million fine as part of the U.S. Transportation Department's investigation into how GM handled the February recall of the small cars. The Detroit-based company also has added about 35 investigators as it shows a willingness to take vehicles off the road for a variety of reasons.

In April, Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra was called to testify before two congressional committees 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.

While Barra was held blameless in the company's investigation, she dismissed 15 employees for their roles in the episode. That investigation was led by Anton Valukas, chairman of law firm Jenner & Block LLC, who served as a Justice Department appointed examiner of the downfall of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

GM's recall total exceeds the 10.7 million vehicle mark set by the automaker in 2004, according to the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. By comparison, Americans are expected to buy 16.1 million new cars and trucks this year, according to the average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Two months after repair kits for recalled GM vehicles began being shipped to dealers, the automaker has repaired only about 155,000 vehicles, though the company continues to maintain it will replace all of them on schedule.

Congressional investigators, releasing a memorandum Monday morning in advance of a Wednesday hearing on the automaker's ignition switch recall, noted that just under 400,000 repair kits have been shipped globally by supplier Delphi as of last Wednesday.

GM initially ordered the recall in February and later expanded it to include all model years of Chevrolet Cobalts and HHRs, Saturn Ions and Skys, and Pontiac G5s and Solstices.

Barra will once again face questions on the recall from a House subcommittee at Wednesday's hearing. Federal regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have fined GM $35 million for not turning over information years ago that could have led to an earlier recall. An internal GM report released two weeks ago by Valukas -- who will also testify Wednesday -- found the company missed multiple warning signs in part because of a corporate culture that discouraged the sharing of negative news and a failure to move pertinent information between departments.

In Monday's memorandum, House investigators noted that GM "states that it is working 'around the clock'" to manufacture the replacement ignition switches in the hope of concluding the repairs by Oct. 4. But it noted that only 154,731 vehicles have been repaired so far worldwide, 129,583 of which are in the U.S. While the memorandum made no comment on the speed of the repairs, at the current rate, fewer than 500,000 vehicles would be fixed by October.

GM spokesman Greg Martin said another line is being added to produce the parts and the company still expects to be done with repairs by October. Many of the models and their parts have been out of production for some time, which in part explains why it has taken some time to get the recalled switches produced in large quantities.

In the past 2½ months, congressional investigators have received more than 1 million pages of documents from GM and 15,000 from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has come under scrutiny for not ordering a recall sooner. At the subcommittee's first hearing in April, Barra declined to answer many questions, saying she would wait until Valukas finished his report.

The subcommittee memorandum said members are expected to ask whether the Valukas report marks the end of GM's internal investigation of why the defect wasn't caught sooner; and what needs to be done to change the corporate culture at GM.

After the Valukas report was released, Barra fired the 15 GM employees and took disciplinary action against five others.

Information for this article was contributed by John Irwin and Tim Higgins of Bloomberg News and Todd Spanger of the Detroit Free Press.

A Section on 06/17/2014