Third time’s apparently not the lucky charm, as General Motors (GM) have issued a fourth recall for fire risks of some of their cars already on the roads. These risks have to do with drops of oil on the exhaust manifold. And the very worrying and eyebrow-raising part is that ~1.4 million GM cars are this time affected by the issue worldwide and the last time that General Motors recalled cars for fire risks was not so long ago. Namely, in 2008.
The company’s own admission gives some “interesting” statistics: “19 cases of reported minor injuries over the last 6 years” and “luckily, no crashes or fatalities”. Still, 19 injuries in 6 years due to an issue that apparently wasn’t covered after the first three recalls meant to deal with fire risks is a pretty bad figure. Plus, the property damage (like garages that caught fire) added to this also doesn’t help. Especially when the total number of reported fires due to cars supposed to have been repaired in earlier recalls reaches 1,345 cases!
Of course, there’s a rational, company-saving explanation for what looks like a pretty big mishandling of affairs: “aging and wear to the valve cover and valve cover gasket can allow oil seepage.”, which nullified the previous repairs, according to a GM spokesman called Alan Adler.
And the magical temporary solution that he foresees the company asking owners to adopt until their cars are recalled? Quite simple, sirs and ladies. Just don’t park in garages, ok?
Worth mentioning as well is that the first recalls (May 2008), did not come entirely at GM’s initiative, but were rather prompted by an investigation from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which at the time looked at 138 reports of such fires in GM vehicles.
As the typical scenario involved these fires starting 5 to 15 minutes after a vehicle was parked, GM gave owners the same advice, to not park their cars in the garage until a fix is given.
So, you have to wonder, just about how many times should an issue that causes such an inconvenience, property damage, potential injuries to customers and a fairly consistent amount of costs to GM themselves have to pop-up and be dealt with until it is actually fixed?
Customers are probably hoping that 4 sounds like a pretty good number, and that this GM recall for fire risks will be the final one.
In the meantime, get your cars ready for recall if they are one of the following models: 1997-2004 Pontiac Grand Prix, 2000-2004 Chevrolet Impala, 1998-1999 Chevrolet Lumina and 1998-2004 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, 1998-1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue and 1997-2004 Buick Regal.
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