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GM offers loaner cars, allowances to recalled-car owners
GM Safety Recalls
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Upcoming Safety Recalls 13454 and 14063 Ignition Switch Replacement Customer Notification Letter Mailing
YOUNGSTOWN
Local dealerships are responding to an unusual General Motors directive that all dealers provide loaner cars to customers concerned about the safety of their recalled vehicles.
It’s the latest development in GM’s recall saga that now includes more than 1.6 million cars, all made in the mid-2000s, with a faulty ignition switch.
Initially, the company recalled about 780,000 Chevrolet Cobalts and Pontiac G5s, made at the Lordstown manufacturing plant between 2005 and 2007. Two weeks later, GM expanded the recall by about 842,000 vehicles to include various years of the Saturn Ion and Sky, the Pontiac Solstice and Chevrolet HHR.
These recalls were tied to an ignition switch that could slip from the “run” position to “accessory” or “off,” resulting in the loss of power brakes, power steering and airbag deployment failure. The problem has been linked to at least 34 crashes and 12 deaths.
In a letter posted on the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website, GM instructed dealers to provide a free loaner vehicle to customers driving the recalled models, free of charge, until replacement parts come in early April.
Barry Gonis, general manager of Spitzer Chevrolet in North Jackson, said the company’s mandate is one he had never seen before. Nonetheless, Gonis said, his dealership accommodated two Chevrolet Cobalt owners with a courtesy car.
One customer, fearing for the safety of his wife and child, was concerned that his car’s airbag would not deploy, he said.
Sweeney Chevrolet in Boardman also had arranged alternate transportation for two of its customers, said Jason Bumgardner, fixed-operations director at the dealership.
GM said the initiative is designed to promote customer safety, while also minimizing inconvenience.
“We’re going to be judged by how we handle the customers,” and not the recall, said Alan Adler, a GM spokesman.
Yet the GM directive seemed to be met with confusion at some dealerships early Thursday when some customers ran into resistance from dealers.
One Austintown man said an Akron-area dealership told him that he’d have to pay to rent a car for his daughter. That situation was resolved in the afternoon, after a call to GM.
The company also is offering a $500 cash allowance toward a new 2013-15 model year Chevrolet, Buick, GMC or Cadillac vehicles, according to GM’s letter.
GM stressed that the money was not to be used as a marketing ploy.
“We have been very clear in our message to U.S. dealers that this allowance is not a sales tool and it is only to be used to help customers in need of assistance. Neither GM nor its dealers will market or solicit owners using this allowance,” the company said Wednesday in a statement.