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GM Names and Fires Engineers Involved In Faulty Ignition Switch

Posted by Soulskill on from the bet-you-didn't-think-you'd-be-in-the-headlines-for-ignoring-an-email dept.

An anonymous reader writes 'Thirteen people have died because of faulty ignition switches in General Motors vehicles. The company has recalled 2.6 million cars, paid a $35 million fine, and set up a fund to compensate the victims. Now, an internal investigation into the incident has shown that the company was aware of the problem since 2002. 15 employees have been fired over what CEO Mary Barra calls "misconduct and incompetence." The report singles out Ray DeGiorgio, an engineer who allegedly approved a part that did not meet specifications and misled coworkers who were investigating complaints. "He actually changed the ignition switch to solve the problem in later model years of the Cobalt, but failed to document it, told no one, and claimed to remember nothing about the change."

"There's no evidence anyone else knew the switch was out-of-spec at the time, the report says; neither did DeGiorgio tell anyone when issues with the part were brought to his attention multiple times. When one engineer specifically asked DeGiorgio in 2004 whether the switch met torque specifications, DeGiorgio didn't respond. Evidence the investigators gathered showed that he started two e-mails but never sent them. ... Instead, DeGiorgio was consumed by a problem in which cars with the switch were failing to start in cold weather, something the report says was "a personal embarrassment to DeGiorgio.'"'

6 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. So Scott Oldham of Edmunds.com is a liar? by mcmonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    According to this NPR story:
    http://www.npr.org/2014/03/31/...

    Scott Oldham of Edmunds.com had a test drive of the Cobalt in 2004, with a GM engineer in the car. Multiple times Oldham's knee hit the key fob and car shut down.

    Also, a major factor preventing identification of the ignition switch issue (or at least providing plausible deniability) is the part number. GM had 2 sets of cars: one set supposedly had this issue, the other did not. Both had the same ignition switch, so if there was a difference between the two sets, the ignition switch was not it.

    Now we know the ignition switch was changed, but the part number stayed the same, making it difficult to correctly identify the issue. We're supposed to believe a single engineer was responsible for changing a part but not the part number?

    Not that it matters much to me. My car searches start with Consumer Reports reviews and reliability ratings, and so no GM car has been in consideration for a while.

  2. Re: No one will ever buy a GM product again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    toyota allowed a man to go to prision for several years rather than admit the truth about a defect. if you think toyota didn't do everything to cover this up your kidding yourself.

    http://reason.com/blog/2010/02/22/man-got-eight-years-for-deaths

  3. It is NOT a new company by sjbe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Because the old GM is gone. The shareholders and management switched. It's a new company with the same name and it doesn't deserve to be liable for the past company.

    "Doesn't deserve"? Gotta disagree with you there. Sure the company technically is incorporated as a "new" company and some (but not even close to all) of the management has changed but fundamentally it is still the same company. You are giving them a pass based on some legal technicalities which they do not deserve. In all practical terms it is the same company, selling the same products, under the same name, with mostly the same employees and the same facilities.

    I run a company that supplies parts to GM. (we're a Tier 3 supplier) I honestly doubt there was much if any cover up. Frankly in my experience GM is too incompetent for that. I see their engineers do stuff all the time that is borderline retarded and the company is so large it's hard to even find a person responsible for a specific issue, much less hold them accountable. While I can't say for certain either way, I tend to think the cause of this fiasco is more structural than criminal. I think this is probably a case of incompetence of such a degree that it appears as malfeasance.

    1. Re:It is NOT a new company by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Frankly in my experience GM is too incompetent for that. I see their engineers do stuff all the time that is borderline retarded and the company is so large it's hard to even find a person responsible for a specific issue, much less hold them accountable. While I can't say for certain either way, I tend to think the cause of this fiasco is more structural than criminal. I think this is probably a case of incompetence of such a degree that it appears as malfeasance.

      I'd like to confirm your point. My father used to run one of GMs largest suppliers. I'm not sure I'd call them incompetent. But they're large on a scale that's comparable to AT&T. They're to the point of being almost a government institution. I doubt the CEO has ANY clue at all what's going on with the engineers or the production floor. The way they work with suppliers is "You will give us X and if you don't we can switch suppliers with no notice. Sign here or don't. We don't care." and if you screw up, at all, they will literately switch suppliers in hours. Often they owned the tooling and had plenty of backup to send off to another vendor.

      I remember parts mixups resulting in my father packing suitcases full of automotive parts, boarding a residential flight and hand carrying the parts to Detroit on more than one occasion. If you have a problem, you fix it immediately, either directly or by covering it up, or GM will pull your contract and you'll be laying people off the next day.

  4. Re: No one will ever buy a GM product again by sjames · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What is really sick is that on the day he was granted a new trial the prosecutor tried to trick him into pleading guilty and accepting time served. When he refused, the prosecution dropped the whole thing.

    I sincerely hope he gets a great deal of money and a very public apology from Toyota, Minnesota, and the Feds (they knew about the problem too), but I'm not going to hold my breath for any of that.

  5. Re: No one will ever buy a GM product again by podmate · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Faulty firmware? Are you referring to the brake debacle a few years ago?

    I think it's been pretty well established by know that it was all media attention driving that and Toyota really didn't have anything wrong with its vehicles.

    Established by whom? I had a Pontiac Vibe (Toyota Matrix which is based on the Toyota Corolla) with an automatic transmission and 1.8L engine and it 'suddenly accelerated' a few times before I got rid of it after 1 year of ownership because I was scared to let anyone drive the car. Pontiac and Toyota told me the sudden acceleration was because of a floor mat. There was no floor mat on the driver side of my car nor was there anything that could 'grab' the accelerator pedel. Pontiac and Toyota told me I was stamping on the gas instead of the brake. Funny, while driving my car would just take off and I could have my feet nowhere near the brake or gas pedals and the car would keep on accelerating. The brakes COULD stop the car, but if I let off the brakes the car would still take off. The way I took care of the issue was by moving the selector from drive to neutral and back to drive. Sometimes I had to do this a few times for the car to go back to normal operation. Not really very good for the transmission or engine. Pontiac and Toyota refused to listen to anything I had to say and basically told me 'sucks to be you, now please go away'. I have zero interest in ever purchasing anything made by Toyota again. I don't purchase anything made by GM either, but that is because most of their cars are poorly designed pieces of sh$t based on family experience from the late 70's to 2011. My extended family just can't learn from their mistakes.