GM Issues Airbag Recall Affecting Another 1.2 Million Vehicles

GM has issued a new recall for over 1 million vehicles citing problems with the airbags which could prevent them from deploying in a side-impact crash.

On March 13, GM approved a customer-satisfaction campaign to address an airbag flaw affecting the GMC Acadia, Chevrolet Traverse, Buick Enclave and Saturn Outlook crossovers. One day after this decision was made, GM made the announcement that they would upgrade the issue to a full recall.

A chronology report given to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows that GM has known about this problem since 2008. A spokesman for General Motors said that he believed the issue was sufficiently addressed through the customer-satisfaction campaign and that the airbags were only prone to fail after a customer ignored the warning light for several months.

While there are no known crashes or injuries related to this latest recall, GM says that the wiring harness connectors can become corroded, causing increased resistance and prompting the “service airbag” message to appear.  The corrosion and faulty harness connectors can ultimately cause the resistance level to become so high that a crash would not trigger the airbags, and could even prevent the seat belt from working properly in its alignment with the airbags.

For more information or to read more about the series of events leading up to the recall announcement, click the link below:

http://www.autonews.com/article/20140429/OEM11/140429850/gm-was-reluctant-to-recall-1-2-million-vehicles-for-airbag-issues