In February, GM acknowledged the problem with a limited recall of some Chevrolet Cobalts. But soon it came to light that the defect was widespread, affecting at least 1.6 million Chevys, Pontiacs and Saturns from 2003 through 2007. GM just issued a recall to replace the ignition assembly on those vehicles, but won't have parts until next month.
The total number recalled is bound to grow, because now GM has admitted it knew about this ignition problem going back to 2001 and did literally nothing about it until 2005. At that point they began to issue "technical bulletins" to their service departments. These bulletins amount to "silent" recalls -- no public announcement, but if a customer bitches, the complaint is suddenly covered by factory warranty.
Yes, we're talking about mass-production, and yes, shit happens. But bottom line, GM knew about a potentially deadly problem for 14 years and purposely did next to nothing about it. More than one of their execs has termed it "a business decision." That's exactly what it was -- a cold, hard commercial calculation about the value of a human life versus the cost of a large vehicle recall. Wrongful death dollar settlements can range from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions. The U.S. Dept. of Transportation says the "value of a statistical life" is $9 million.
The bean-counters at GM clearly saw financial advantage in risking a few wrongful death payouts instead of stepping up to the cost of a full-scale recall. What a cheap, stupid business decision. GM wound up issuing the recall anyway, and now they're gonna pay one hell of a lot more than that. The lawyers will have a field day, and they should. And the feds just fined Toyota $1.2 billion for similar malfeasance. GM is on deck, wondering how big their fine will be. It ought to be large.
Even so, big business always gets off easy in America. Some dumb schmuck from the ghetto gets caught with a baggie in his pocket and -- 3 strikes and you're out! -- that poor bastard is going to jail for life. Meanwhile the titans of finance and industry crash the economy and manufacture unsafe products, and get off with apologies and writing a few checks. (Sometimes I think some of these callous job-creators need to do some real jail time with the general prison population. Six months getting ass-raped in a federal pen might give 'em a whole new outlook.)
And GM's full recall is still bogus. When they finally get the parts, the prescribed repair will remove the old ignition assembly and replace it with a new one. But even after that, GM recommends that the car be operated only with a single ignition key and nothing else -- no other keys or rings or other things weighing down the key ring. That brings us right back to where we started, and isn't much of a "fix" at all. It's a load of crap. The market value for these cars is in the toilet from now on. And who the hell uses a single key and nothing else?
General Motors ought to commence a buy-back campaign. Contact all the owners of these vehicles and instruct them to take their cars to any GM dealership and park those turds. Through the dealership, GM would literally buy back each of these defective vehicles and give every owner a check for the pre-recall retail value or payoff amount of their car, whichever is greater. No questions asked, no obligations whatsoever. Return the car and get a check. Expensive for GM? You bet, but it would create a lot of good will and probably spur some car sales as well.
And it would be the right thing to do. Which would be a really good business decision.
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