Washington April 6, 2011 – General Motors has decided to recall 2,100 Chevrolet Cruze models because the steering wheel could fall off while you’re driving. This actually happened to a young woman while driving in mid March of this year. Lucky for GM and her there was no crash or injuries. GM blamed the problem on the Lordstown Ohio factory saying that a worker put the wrong steering wheel on the vehicle, realized the mistake, removed the wrong steering wheel and installed the correct one. Somehow in this on again / off again process the bolt that holds the steering wheel was left off.
GM’s fix is the funniest I’ve seen in a while. In a company tech memo they tell dealers to remove the airbag and look for the bolt that holds the steering wheel on. If there is no bolt they tell them to put one on and tighten it. If they see a bolt (in step 7) they are told to put everything back together (in step 8) with no mention of checking how tight it is. GM doesn’t tell them to check if its loose or check how tight it is. Can you imagine taking apart a steering wheel that is suspected of falling off and not checking to see if the bolt that holds it on is tight? Who writes these recall instructions for GM? Sponge Bob and Patrick? Once again GM has managed to raise the bar an inch or two off the floor without hurting itself.
On the bright side GM has given the owner another new car as a result of their mistake – way to go GM. Now if they would only do that for the rest of their defective vehicles we wouldn’t know how to spell the name Toyota would we? How GM determines how many vehicles get recalled is considered an industry mystery so watch out for more complaints in the future. Here’s hoping they found all the affected cars.
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