ULTIMATEORANGESS

iTrader: (4)

http://www.wnd.com/2014/03/gm-under-...cat_orig=money

King's Z

*cough* WND *cough*

BanditTA

iTrader: (3)

It's interesting that on my 06 HHR (included in the recall) if you pull down straight down on the key by the keyfob nothing happens. If you pull the key fob towards the dash you can pull it to "off". What is the most interesting is i've done it on Toyotas, Nissans, VWs and a Subaru and they all required about the same amount of force to flip it to off. What should be done is they shouldn't allow people to hang 5lbs of keys off of the ignition key and the problem would be solved. My HHR has 200k miles and it's never once shut off......reason being I only have the key fob handing off the ignition key. ******* retarded

What is wrong is that GM allowed it to be built knowing it was wrong, that I have a problem with.

Suaveat69

*cough* from the NY Times *cough*

Jon5212

iTrader: (2)

Do people not realize with the engine off, that you still have brakes and the steering wheel should not be locked? At least my Marauder, my ford edge and my Silverado, if you turn the key off while driving down the road you can still steer and you can still brake, albeit difficult to brake, but you still have them none the less.....

Tolley's94z28

iTrader: (4)

We do, but there are many people out there that literally have no idea how a car works. I mean NO idea. It's depressing really.

Jon5212

iTrader: (2)

Big and true point there... it is sad... and really they SHOULD know it's nothing to take lightly as they are driving a 4,000 pound death machine.

Tolley's94z28

iTrader: (4)

2 things that should be mandatory in highschool:
1. Finance/money management
2. The basics of how a car works

sick_tight

You may have brakes but if it flips to off would the column lock lock the steering wheel? I never had an issue with my ss cobalt but my base model if I adjusted my steering wheel height and went to the lowest setting it would cut off.

Jon5212

iTrader: (2)

I believe the newer cars the steering wheel doesn't lock unless the key is out, not just off. At least my 3 vehicles don't... I can't speak for other cars.

justin455

Sorry for the long-winded response in advance.

Pretty sure my 2005 G6 works the same way. I'll test it out tomorrow just to see what happens. It uses a different ignition switch, but everything is electric including the power steering.

I find the whole thing a bit ridiculous. Sure GM dragged their feet on the recall and should've at least gone to greater lengths to enure people knew it was a possibility if you attached 87lbs of worthless knick-knacks to your key; but saying they are responsible for deaths is out of hand.

I did a quick search and 2 names popped up very prominently.

Amber Marie Rose apparently was the first to be killed in a crash in which the ignition had shut off. What most articles brush over after long-winded sentimental paragraphs, or completely omit in most cases, is that both a lack of wearing a seatbelt AND alcohol were factors in her fatal crash. So basically this stupid 16 year old girl is driving late at night, drunk and without a seatbelt, and her ignition shuts off because of the tons of **** she has added to her keychain and she freaks out causing the vehicle to slam into a tree.

Brooke Melton is another popular name to pop up...most likely for no other reason than she has a good story for sympathy readers as a girl-next-door type almost done with nursing school that was on her way to her boyfriend's house...to plan their next mission trip or feed the homeless I'm sure.
Well here we have another young girl, this time driving down a wide, straight interstate road, late one rainy night. Her ignition shuts off (she probably only had like 3 keys hanging off there...right?) and the car spins out, hitting a car in another lane, and eventually resulting in a fatal crash.

I don't know about how physics worked in Atlanta that night, but where I am when a car is going straight...it pretty much wants to stay going straight unless you turn the wheel. My guess is Brooke here freaked the **** out when everything went dark and frantically jerked the wheel all around going 70mph down a wet highway.

Sounds to me like this is just more of the same "it's someone else's fault" culture we have going on now. Why does it have to be my fault when I can blame someone else?

It could've been handled more expediently by GM, but that doesn't help the fact that one of the martyrs would've gotten a DUI had she survived and the others were most likely novice or unskilled drivers ill-prepared to handle emergency driving situations.

When I was 20 years old I had a 1990 Pontiac Grand Am. That car actually had an ignition kill switch that liked to short every now and again. Guess what I was able to do every single time it suddenly shut off on me? Yep, I was able to keep steering the exact same way I had been, put the car into Neutral, and start that bitch right back up and be on my merry little way. Hell, that car even sheared a lug bolt on the front drivers wheel when I was going 65mph down a winding country road. The front wheel and tire flew off into a field a few hundred yards away and I coasted that thing to the side of the road using 1 tire on one side and 1 brake rotor on the other...all while enjoying one hell of a sparks/light show.

BanditTA

iTrader: (3)

The steering column does not lock until the key is "off" and the key is out, when it turns off it goes to accessory (the in--between click on new cars) and the steering, windows, brakes, radio, etc. all still work.

If there are 1.5-2 millions cars with this ignition switch and 13 people die, that really doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary. And like stated earlier, several of the crashes had other contributing factors that nobody talks about.

sick_tight

im not saying bad GM i was just asking but yes theyre definitely making this out to be a witch hunt. at least some accelerators arent sticking haha

justin455

Power steering doesn't work, but it doesn't lock up like when the key is out. Hard to turn at slow speeds, but at higher speeds where a crash would be fatal I would think any relatively healthy young teen (boy or girl) would be able to change lanes or cope with any curves on a road where the speed they are traveling is appropriate.

Brakes still sufficient to stop me from ~30mph though it could've been from a higher speed. I didn't want to just stand on them because no ABS and one of the girls crashed on a rainy night. Regardless there was enough braking force before the pedal became dead for someone to pull towards the shoulder and slow down from 60-70mph IMO. (cable operated parking brake works still, too) Instead of freaking out like I assume they did, they could've done absolutely nothing and still coasted to a stop.

Even then, any dipshit should be taught to at least try putting it in neutral and restarting the engine.

Jon5212

iTrader: (2)

Good points justin, however it is sad that is the culture we live in today. It's always someone else's fault, especially someone who has DEEP pockets... like GM and their insurance company.
And our "entitlement" culture that people think they are OWED something.

Heck just yesterday I spoke to a customer who had no collision coverage and blew a stop sign causing an accident, yet somehow its MY fault that she doesn't pay for collision coverage so she gets no money for her car.

NW-99SS

iTrader: (6)

Yup, and a lot more driver education in the actual course would help as well. Unfortunately, as the world continues to progress from rural to urban, the amount of mechanically inclined people is dwindling fast. Having been raised on a farm, I would add that everyone should be required to work on a ranch-like farm (we had a cattle farm), that isn't in the best financial shape, to learn very important life skills that cannot be taught in a classroom.

The current young generation, with their entitlement, lack of ambition, absolute avoidance of responsibility and accountability, scares me to death

Jon5212

iTrader: (2)

Just saw a family has sued GM for 2 deaths in 2006 in Wisconsin... it will immediately get tossed out, statute of limitations for injury tort claims is 3 years from the incident there.