GM avoided defective switch redesign in 2005 to save a dollar each

[Undertoad]

It's a story custom made for our resident GM-spreadsheets curmudgeon!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A3105R20140402

General Motors Co in 2005 decided not to change an ignition switch eventually linked to the deaths of at least 13 people because it would have added about a dollar to the cost of each car, according to an internal GM document provided to U.S. congressional investigators.

The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce released the documents on Tuesday as lawmakers asked CEO Mary Barra why GM failed to recall 2.6 million cars until more than a decade after it first noticed a switch problem that could cut off engines and disable airbags, power steering and power brakes.

Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette cited a 2005 GM document that she said showed a cost of 57 cents per fix.

[glatt]

I understand the current CEO was in her job and learned of this problem and only took 3 months to decide to do a recall when previous GM CEOs had gone 13 years without doing a recall. And yet she's the one being roasted alive by Congress.

Reminds me of the DC Metro. The current General Manager inherited a massively screwed up system and has been aggressively doing maintenance to fix the problems. Maintenance that is interfering with weekend service. So he's being criticized by everyone. When the previous General Manager maintained nothing and let it fall into such disrepair that an accident killed a bunch of riders he got off scot-free. Sometimes life's not fair and people are dumb.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

It's a story custom made for our resident GM-spreadsheets curmudgeon!

Spexxvet, right?

[tw]

Numerous details demonstrated profits remained more important than the product. For example in the 70s, if a door panel went to a GM 'home' factory and was rejected as defective, they could not dispose it. Instead, it was sent to a GM Assembly Division plant that was making the same car. If that part was so defective as to be also rejected by GMAD, then it was sent to dealers as a repair part.

GM mysteriously fixed the switch's 1.6 mm defect a few years ago. But kept a same part number. For reasons we saw in the 70s. A defective switch could be sent to dealers as a replacement part. Then profits were not lost with defective switches. Americans be damned.

GM would do anything to increase profits - like a mafia. As demonstrated by inferior Camaro and Volt. Why would anyone make a hybrid where the engine cannot recharge its battery?


A properly designed car must still steer even without a running engine. Properly designed small cars (ie Cobalt) should steer without any power assist; without any engine power. Previous J cars (ie Vega) and other small cars, (Mustang, Maverick, Pinto, Nova, etc) had no power assist with an even cruder steering system. Why is Cobalt less safe than those? Even my first Honda Accord had no power steering - and did not need it.

Small Cobalt was so badly designed as to be all but unsteerable without power assist. No car should be that badly designed. That's what happens when a president and CEO does not even have a drivers license.

Same with brakes. All properly designed cars still have power brakes even if an engine stalls. Apparently this is not true with Cobalt. Only a cost controller (business school graduate) would design that.

A defective ignition switch is only one of many defects. Since switchiing to ACC does not cause loss of steering and brakes on any properly designed car.

Barra may be the first 'car guy' heading GM since the 1960s. If true, that means cars designed by engineers will appear in four or more years. William Clay Ford needed over eight years to replace 'bean counter' (crappy) products. He replaced business school graduates with engineers starting in 2000. It takes that long for a CEO to fix crappy products and atttidue that justifies defects and murder. No different than attitudes that burned people alive in Pintos and Malibus.

Hopefully Barra is a 'car guy'. But it will take years to undo a 'bean counter' mentality and replace a long list of crappy products.

Congress should have been grilling anti-Americans Rick Wagoner and John Smith. These CEOs said profits are more important than products, financial obligations (ie pension funds), innovation, or America. Their 'screw you' attitude persisted even after Barra took charge. She discovered a routine coverup apparently from news reports, and stepped in.

Until it got her attention, GM continued with a same "we love to screw America and make crappy products" coverup that began sometime around 1970. That has been a feature of all J cars (Vega, Cavalier, Sunfire, Ascona, Skyhawk, Cobalt, Sunbird, Cimmaron, etc) ever made. This defective switch continued for 13 years in J cars and numerous other models - long before posts here accurately described Cobalt as crap. Attitudes as described in DeLorean's book "On a Clear Day You Can See GM". DeLorean was the last of 'car guys' to design GM products.

Fools would blame Barra for what should be indictments for murder by Wagoner and Smith. Same applied to Toyota. Toyoda inherited a major design fubar from Katsuaki Watanabe who was also doing what Wagoner and Smith believed - maximize profits. Toyoda described bankruptcy as a five step process. And said Toyota was at step three - because Watanbe also was trying to make profits rather than better products. Toyoda got a grilling in Congress as Barra has now suffered.

GM's J cars, all manufactured in Lordstown OH, were designed by business school graduates. Why would anyone expect anything but problems from J cars that were never designed by 'car guys'.

BTW, when Barra started investigating, then dealers were told to stop selling all 2013 and 2014 Chevy Cruz. GM would not say why. Apparently 'car guys' discovered additional 'bean counter created' problems. It will take years to undo this widespread corruption.

BTW, how did Marchionne do same in Fiat? He fired all managers in six months. Suddenly things started being fixed.

[slang]

One dollar, hmm.

I wonder how that might have increased the monthly payment for a car?

[gvidas]

Saw this and thought of tw:

'Deathtrap' on GM's naughty words list

A lengthy list of unacceptable terms appeared in a 2008 presentation given to GM employees on how to communicate with each other regarding possible safety issues.

Besides individual words, certain phrases were also discouraged in the presentation. "This is a lawsuit waiting to happen," and "Unbelievable engineering screw-up" were among what the presentation described as "examples of comments that do not help identify and solve problems."

[...]

Less inflammatory words such as "safety," "safety related," "serious," "failure," and "defect" were also listed as words to be avoided.

Such words and phrases were not to be used because they are "vague and non-descriptive" according to GM's presentation.

Instead of "Safety," an employee should write that something has "Has potential safety implications." Instead of "Defect," an employee should say that something "Does not perform to design." Instead of a "Problem," there is an "Issue, condition, matter."

[tw]

I saw it first hand. Got into an elevator with a union guy. Wow. They changed the sign. They corrected the word 'employe'. "No", says the union guy. Roger Smith spelled employee incorrectly (like another genius Dan Quayle). So all signs, contracts, 'employe' handbooks, and forms were changed to spell it with one 'e'. Within a week of retiring, everything was changed to spell employee correctly.

Some GM cars cost more to build then sold for. Quality was so crappy that GM blamed computers for failures created by 'cost controlled' connectors (that maybe saved 50 cents). But GM would spend maybe a $million to change the word to 'employe'. And then spend just as much to correct it. Communism is when employees work for the boss.

About the same time, I was talking to the president of a GM supplier. He was bitter. He said, "GM is going to show me how to cut my costs." Anyone who bought a GM car in the past 20 years is complicit in these problems.

Mary Barra only discovered the Vega (Cavalier, Cobalt, Ascona, Skyhawk, Sunfire, Saturn, etc) problem when it was reported by the news. Because a business school culture hides and denies failures - to cut costs. For the same reason business school graduates killed so many with Firestone tires, in the Challenger and Columbia, and in exploding Malibus that were burning occupant alive just like Pintos.

Anyone who has a kind word for GM must be as dumb as a wacko extremist. Hopefully wackos in GM do not stab Mary Barra in the back. Because so much if not most of GM management is that anti-American, dumb, and do not come from where the work gets done.

Chances are Mary Barra has a driver's license. Unusual. Most American automotive top executives could not drive. And believe they need not learn. We are only rats to be raped. Their attitude. I saw this first hand. It has been that obvious for decades.