“The problem was people having a whole lot of keys on the ring/chain dangling below the ignition which was messing up the switches.”
Obviously, this is a bad policy and a safety hazard for the driver EVEN WITH switches that work perfectly.
What I find highly disturbing about what happened, is that GM changed the part without changing the part number. In the manufacturing environments I’ve worked in, that behavior would get you fired very quickly, up to the managers who permitted/ignored it.
The reason is, manufacturing must have traceability for liability and safety agency reasons. Suppose that you have a recall of an electrical, UL-approved product for a safety reason. What would you rather do - recall and eat the expense of units between serial number 000234 and 003456, or every single product of that type you ever made, up to serial number 856,456?
There shouldn’t be a recall. it’s defect people not defective switches!
I have no sympathy for stupid people getting killed, the more the better!
“What I find highly disturbing about what happened, is that GM changed the part without changing the part number. In the manufacturing environments I’ve worked in, that behavior would get you fired very quickly, up to the managers who permitted/ignored it.”
Exactly! There are engineering problems and quality problems with any product, and cars are a fairly complex item to manufacture. The issue is the morality of the people involved. My bet is that this is another case of “what is the cost tradeoff between fixing the problem and paying off those who get harmed.” I like GM cars, but I hope that the people involved go to jail here, and that includes the people in the government who also evidently knew about the problem and looked the other way.
I just heard today that hiding behind the fact that this problem occurred with “The Old GM”, and that “the New GM” has no liability may go out the window if it is proven that this problem was not brought up in the bankruptcy as a potential liability.