Saturday, April 04, 2020

one decision in the past 20 years cost GM around 2 billion dollars. That ignition switch.

General Motors has reached a preliminary settlement in a lawsuit on behalf of owners of vehicles with faulty ignition switches and related defects, agreeing to pay $120 million.

It addresses economic harm due to resale, repairs, and other related losses due to the defect.
It is unrelated to the $625 million settlement fund that GM initiated in 2014 to pay for 124 deaths and 275 injuries.
 It is also unrelated to a settlement in 2015 that paid $275 million for more than 1380 death and injury claims that were not part of the compensation fund.

In 2015, when GM settled criminal charges with the U.S. Department of Justice for $900 million and paid $300 million to a New York teachers' pension fund for lost shareholder equity.

The only other associations that have employees that make such incredibly expensive bad decisions, are city police departments and county sheriffs departments. Those cost their cities and counties millions every year.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a31965015/gm-settles-lawsuit-ignition-switch-car-values/

The ignition switch was a one dollar part. The issue was covered previously in 2014 https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2014/04/26-million-gm-vehicles-have-been.html

3 comments:

  1. Don't forget the UAW.

    Their strike last fall cost GM a little north of $5B.

    On a per person affected basis, that makes GM continuing their association with the UAW far more expensive.

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    Replies
    1. The title and premise of my post was that GM fucked up, went ahead with a design that did not meet QA standards, and yet GM didn't care enough about safety and quality to fix it before production, and that chutzpah cost them about 2 billion dollars, instead of doing the right thing, and giving a shit about best practices and what was best for the company, and the customers.
      Remember, people DIED because of that ignition switch decision.
      So, the union contract and strike, though more expensive, were not a result of foolish, ego driven, "let's play the odds and see if we can get away with it and not have to do a recall" core values.
      GM and the other car makers should actually have not caved into the union on strike, and should have just finally bit the bullet, and moved on without a union.
      The union doesn't cause the cars to be made better, or safer. They only cause the cars to be more expensive
      After all, the union built the cars that had the deadly ignition switch

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  2. My 80+ year old mother (God rest her soul) had a Cobalt with this ignition problem, the dealerships she took it to tried to throw the blame back on her, that she didn't know what she was doing, maybe was mistaken, etc. Disgraceful. Then we get a recall notice-to get in line while they make new switches and schedule their customers repairs. Oh, and there was no way a dealership would take her car in trade until the recall repair was done.

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