New recall questions for GM
Thousands of cars on road have steering defect found in Cobalt
Hundreds of thousands of General Motors cars with the same steering system that prompted a Chevrolet Cobalt recall four years ago haven’t been recalled, even though safety officials say they have duplicated the Cobalt defect in the Saturn Ion.
The flaw, which causes sudden loss of the steering ’s power assist, isn’t related to GM’s ignition switch recall, but some of the models in that recall, including the Ion, also share the Cobalt’s electric power steering system.
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, which has had an investigation of the 2004 to 2007 Ion steering open since 2010, said in a statement that it “is actively investigating the potential safety defect and will take appropriate action.”
GM has adopted a more aggressive safety review policy but wouldn’t say if an Ion recall is imminent. “GM is redoubling efforts on pending product reviews to bring them forward,” GM spokesman Greg Martin said. He said GM isn’t “in a position to discuss specific products or issues prior to any outcome of those reviews.”
In March 2010, GM recalled 1.05 million 2005-10 Cobalts and 2007-10 Pontiac G5s for power steering assist failure that made the cars hard to control. GM notified the highway safety administration that the Cobalt motor “was the same as that used” in 2004-2007 Saturn Ions. An analysis for USA TODAY by TrueCar.com found 335,204 of the Saturns still are on the road.
The safety agency opened an inquiry in late 2010 to see whether the Ion also should be recalled. At the time, it had 846 owner complaints and said GM had 3,489. GM also had 13,235 warranty claims. The agency linked crashes and two injuries.
Agency documents say it “has duplicated this failure” in the Ion, and the probe remains open. The documents say that based on data from GM, failure of power assist would cause the car to “revert to manual steering mode and would require increased steering effort” that “could result in some loss of control and a crash.”
Documents show the agency has studied how hard the Ions are to control when the assist fails, suggesting it could decide they behave differently from Cobalts. It noted that with steering, “there are additional external factors to consider ... such as wheelbase, size of the tires, weight.” It said it was analyzing all such factors with Ion and said it “routinely, as part of any investigation, reviews peer vehicles.”