Airbag supplier Takata’s woes continue as General Motors has issued a stop-sale of 33,000 2013 and 2014 Chevrolet Cruzes equipped with the supplier’s airbag units.
Automotive News reports the driver’s side inflator module “may have been assembled with an incorrect part,” according to a notice sent out by GM to Canadian and U.S. dealerships. Unlike the Takata inflators recently recalled by Honda, Toyota et al, the Cruze’s units may fail to inflate the airbag in a crash. Those affected are either in the showroom or already in customer possession.
The stop-sale comes at an inopportune time for dealers as the end-of-the-month sales push kicks into high gear, especially since the Cruze is GM’s best-selling car. Cumulative 2014 sales of the compact total 119,330 through May, and are currently backed by $2,500 in incentives through July 30. Meanwhile, dealers are in pursuit of big wins this quarter under the automaker’s Standards of Excellence program, where small dealerships can receive a $10,000 bonus and $150,000 for the biggest stores.
The stop-sale order may be just the beginning: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration spokesman Jim Cain says GM will file an official recall notice with the agency “soon,” piling onto the 44 recalls already affecting a total of 20 million units globally since the start of this year.
Please, give me a striper with no power anything, no airbags, no electronics any day! manual transmission too! I just cant survive a notice via US Mail to go to a dealer to get a sensor fixed! :))))
P.S. no windshield too, just driving goggles. Windshields may get damaged by a debris and may need a replacement! I am not a billionaire!
It sounds like it’s time for you to scan the “antiques and classics” ads in the paper and select used auto periodicals. Good luck with the no-windshield requirement though.
I sound like the majority of the commenters here. Who compete with each other who’s a more extreme frugalista. And who have a World apocalypses at the thought that in 10 years or 100K miles they may need to spend $350 on replacing a certain part.
I thought I made that obvious?
Well, it looks like “Unsafe at any speed” is back at General Motors. Except this time, with all the numerous models that have been recalled, it may be hard to find a model that is actually safe to purchase. That’s a shame.
What happened to impeccable Japanese ‘quality?’
Daewoo is Korean.
Takata–maker of the defective airbags–is a Japanese company:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/25/uk-autos-takata-recall-idUSKBN0F02V420140625
I don’t see Daewoo referred to anywhere in the post.
I see Takata specifically mentioned in the article as NOT the maker of the defective part in GM cars.
I can imagine the conversation at Takata…
“Don’t break a sweat with the engineering on this one, especially for the pennies GM is paying us. It’s a Daewoo assembled by the UAW. They’re going to have bigger problems.”
GM just hates airbag deployment.
This is an aberration. Normally, GM blows.
Nice.
This is what happens when you specialize from auto making to auto assembling. Most of the components are made by somebody else, but the assembler company gets all the blame.