Posted on 03/30/2014 1:19:58 PM PDT by jazusamo
My understanding is the “new” GM was supposedly absolved from taking on the debts of the “old” GM.
However, any known flaws or defects were supposed to be declared to the bankruptcy court and supposedly this wasn’t.
Right you are. It is termed “running change”
Happens all the time with OEM of all kinds
With proper documentation, such as deviation or engineering change request, etc, however
Observing the obvious tragedy behind this (the deaths)...
...aside from that, the ‘old GM’ BS is what’s so laughably pathetic about all this.
Had GM just handled this on the up & up, it wouldn’t be ruled intentional (if it hasn’t already) and the problem might have cost them a lot less (plus fixed cars a lot faster and likely saved a few lives).
The sort of culture that’s responsible for this, top-down, doesn’t develop overnight and certainly doesn’t dissolve on the basis of a few personnel changes...
I don’t think it’s all as conspiratorial as the reporters wish to think. GM does, and has done, thousands of recalls over the years, and they’ve probably got a few dozen open recall projects going at any one time. It’s nothing new to them and they’ve done them for issues larger and smaller than this ignition switch. They have whole departments full of people that this is all they do. They do, also... make a huge priority out of getting well out in front of any recall that has even the tiniest safety implications.
Especially for recall issues as seemingly cheap and easy as a swapped out ignition switch. I don’t work for GM but I’ve been in those meetings with the people who make decisions like this— and everybody always has them bassackward. They really don’t care all that much how much a recall costs. What they care about is safety and the reputation of the company. A few million here and there doesn’t mean anything if the public starts to lose faith in GM as a safe brand. That really is how they think.
Keeping the part number is perfectly normal, so long as there is a REVISION change, and QA signed off on disposition of the earlier revision (use up existing, cease and scrap out, etc.).
Stating the part number is unchanged is uneducated journalist fear-mongering in its’ insinuation.
Not enough facts here.
(retired Military-Industrial Complex mechanical engineer)
............Not necessarily. In automotive, it’s common to keep the same part number for newer revisions of parts where the newer revision is a drop-in replacement for the old.................
I’m sure that is true, but then how is the parts department at your local chevy dealer know that he is dispensing the safety modified part????
Maybe a suffix, like 12345678A????
We now have the ability to feature a non-contact RFID type of run switch, including an old fashioned crank/start button.
GM part numbers never used to have a suffix. A whole new P/N was required for significantly functionally different parts.
I think you are wrong in this case. People died because the vehicles kept having unexpected shutoffs. The computers showed this. GM went out of its way to not acknowledge the cause, they had the part changed, and did not show on the replacement that it was different. They could have kept the exact number, changed the number, or added an “a” to show that it was different.
They were hiding it and you know it.
I am glad your life experience is different. I have worked for the government and major companies and my experience is that management cares not who dies especially if it impacts this years bonus.
sounds sloppy - rule i was used to over the years was “form, fit, or function”
(in this case it is a form change, a longer pin - either new p/n, or rev it)
discovery will focus on engineering documentation for sure.
I wouldn't assume, just because the switch has the same part number, that the evolutionary (internal to the switch) changes aren't traceable.
It;s a wonder nobody has sued for a car that can;t run out of gasoline. Same ultimate failure mode as far as vehicle control goes. Engine quits, Armstrong Steering becomes effective, etc. I can picture a designer's judgment that the unintended shutdown is a manageable event.
Nonsense. That’s the Hollywood “corporations are always evil” liberal party line.
People died... Well, sure. Upwards from 35,000 or 40,000 people die in cars every year. If six people die over five years in three different models of cars it doesn’t immediately follow that there is some obvious defect in a part that caused all of them. GM and Ford and everybody else has people data mining all those records constantly looking for commonalities that may point to a shared defect. It’s a lot harder to find them than it looks. There are thousands of common parts and there are thousands of unique parts. There are many times when it is only certain combinations of multiple parts that prove to be the problem.
Then they have to do vigorous testing to determine if the problem is in the design, the materials, the manufacture, or lately... Software. All of that takes more time. I’ve been in some of those meetings and I remember coming away, especially at first, being really impressed with how concerned they all were with getting it right and doing the right thing. They just aren’t the bad guys that liberal muckrakers make them out to be.
The detent inside the switch assembly isn’t a serviceable part.
I have a 1976 Chevy Dually 1 ton truck.
I bought it in April, 1986 with 100,000 miles on it. It now has 350,000 on it.
I have about 15 keys hanging on that key chain. NEVER had a single problem.
They are trying their best to remove weight from every new car in every possible place to get batter mileage.
Don’t want a plastic car myself.
... it is possible that he did not examine any GM documents related to the part. I do not think such docs would be proprietary. If the engineer were part of an ongoing lawsuit, then I think the discovery process might have made these documents readily accessible to him. Maybe (for one reason or another) he just didn't view the engineering drawings. But it sounds like he sure was scratching his head wondering, "What's going on??"
But if the engineering documents were properly maintained, they should have easily shown that revisions to low-level pieces of certain configuration items were made. It shouldn't have been hard to ask, "Why'd you change this part right here?"
It's an assumption on my part, but it seems reasonable that the change was made by GM and that the documents did not adequately reflect the change in form, fit or function. Either from sloppiness or malfeasance.
High-level identification (serial number, part number, what-have-you) may not tell the whole story, but the revision history should never be a secret or a mystery.
With all the stalk-mounted controls on the steering column, the ignition key isn't that out of the way. I don't know about this GM car, but in my toyota, when reaching for the cruise control with a gloved hand I can jangle the keys.
I'm sure all of us have a remote entry fob and at least one other key attached to our ignition keys. An old time Chevy dealer told me years ago not to load up my ignition key with lots of keys and other junk as it would cause premature ignition switch failure.
Well, it sure sounds conspiratorial to me, and I am an engineer from way back, where one of the major rules of the game was that different items had different part numbers, even if it was a drop-in replacement.
One of the things to note is that GM settled out of court in this particular case. This keeps other peopler from using the results of the engineer's work. There are many possible reasons for this, all involving economics, but I remember back when every time it looked like a trial was going to end up demonstrating legally that cigarettes really did cause cancer, the tobacco companies would quickly settle it, so that every new plaintiff had to go through that proof all over again starting a zero.
Your contention vs. mine would easily be resolved in discovery, when the plaintiffs would depose a GM engineer about these part numbers being the same, he would say it was common for drop-in replacements, and the the plaintiffs attorney would ask him for a list of all instances like this that he knew of. I believe that GM would never allow such a list to become public, because there would only be two possible outcomes: (1) it wasn't really very common,or (2) it happened all the time and the list would give other plaintiffs a great start on their defects.
A second reason to settle would be that if there are 13 deaths, how many other accidents have there been? Lots and lots of property damage, which insurance companies would love to take a crack at, and then hundreds of injuries, some permanent, some disabling, and some permanently disfiguring. The liability is enormous if the real truth comes out.
As far as the idea that being bumped wasn't an "expected" stress in the normal course of use, this is complete BS. A car is a confined space, with kids, pets, all sorts of stuff that can be foreseen happening in there. I have seen women with 20+ keys, 3 charm bracelets, 2 or 3 plastic key fobs and who-knows-what else hanging from their keys. Men do this less because it doesn't fit in a pants pocket. I have never seen any car company warn against excessive ballast on a key chain.
GM new this was going to happen.
Delphi told panel GM approved ignition switches below specifications
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-house-panel-gm-nhtsa-documents-related-recalls-185520640—sector.html
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.