GM dithered over recall for many days

Detroit/ Washington, March 12: General Motors Co waited more than two weeks to expand a major recall to include the Saturn Ion and other compact cars, even though its engineers were aware of four fatalities in crashes involving the model, GM said in filings published on Wednesday.

In an amended submission to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, GM also said it had identified an issue with the ignition switch, the central failing in the recall of more than 1.6 million cars, in 2001 pre-production testing on the Ion.

That is three years earlier than the company previously had reported. Before Wednesday, GM had said that it became aware of the problem in 2004, in the Chevrolet Cobalt.

GM says the switch has been connected with at least 34 crashes and is linked to at least 12 deaths. Congress, regula- tors and GM itself are investigating why it took the company so long to recall the cars.

GM issued its first recall of more than 600,000 Chevrolet Cobalts on February 7 of this year. On February 25, it expanded the recall by nearly 7.5 lakh vehicles to include the Ion and several other compact models that shared the faulty ignition switch that could cause the engine to shut down and disable the airbags, sometimes at high speed.

Asked why GM had waited before expanding the recall, a spokesman on Wednesday said the company had decided to conduct a “more in-depth analysis” of vehicles listed in previous communications with car dealers. That led to the second round of the recall. A GM document released earlier on Wednesday said that even after the vehicles in its ignition-switch recall are repaired, owners should avoid weighing down their key rings with anything more than the key and fob. — Reuters