GM ignition recall 14350

[kevm14]

This is the one for Jamie's Malibu. In the letter, they refer to the car as the Chevrolet Classic. It was called that in the overlap year when the Epsilon Malibu came out (2004) but they still sold the old N-body Malibu, for fleet sales purposes (they want the old, cheap shit I guess).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Classic

Weird. Used on all 3 modern Malibu platforms.

Anyway, this is a different recall number, but appears to be the same idea as the CTS one.

The owners manual supplement:

recall 14350 supplement.png

Malibu ignition key recall 14350 crop.png

Malibu ignition key recall 14350 2.png

The other difference is, parts aren't yet available for this one. The keys are the same style so...I don't know what that's about. Or, the CTS recall includes the second generation, which uses a different key and THOSE parts are available, but perhaps I'll be told mine aren't yet available.

I'm not that motivated to take care of this, honestly.

[Adam]

That's all interesting. The media reports on this issue were wrong, of course, as they made it seem like it was some electrical issue in the switch rather than a mechanical issue with the lock cylinder. So the issue is with enough weight on the keyring, the cylinder could rotate out of RUN to OFF. Makes sense many of the stories I heard involved people who seam like they would love to put 537 keychains on their keyrings along with lanyards and pictures and store discount cards, etc...

[kevm14]

Some of the other incorrect interpretations are that the steering wheel locks. My brother, for example, thought that was the issue. The steering wheel won't lock until the key rotates all the way to the lock position, and that can't happen in gear. In a manual trans, it requires pressing a release button usually.

[Adam]

Turns out people don't know how cars work.

How the conversation at GM might have gone:
Engineer 1: There might be a problem with some lock cylinders on some cars.
Engineer 2: Like how? They passed all the NHSTA requirements and all of our functional and durability tests.
Engineer 1: Well, if the owner has a lot of junk on their keychain and it hangs a certain way or is bumped in a certain way it might rotate out of run which would shut the car off.
Engineer 2: Who puts a lot of junk on their keychain? I have my key, my fob, and a manufacturer-branded keychain on mine. Also, the owner could just start the car again if that happens.
Engineer 1: Yeah, that makes sense. What's for lunch?

[kevm14]

You're right. Engineers always want to know what's for lunch.

[kevm14]

http://blog.caranddriver.com/nhtsa-gm-f ... d-vehicle/

This is why I thought all ignition recalls required full replacement of the switch/lock cylinder.

Apparently that's only for the truly poorly designed switches which were used in a LOT of cars. However, none of my cars are on that list, so the fix is just the stupid insert. Which begs the question: is there really a problem with the other cars or is GM just covering their ass with a lame fix while still replacing the truly defective ones? I'd be willing to believe that.

[kevm14]

More stuff about the lead engineer for the Delta cars (Cobalt and Ion). Interesting stuff.

http://blog.caranddriver.com/gm-ignitio ... id-my-job/

[bill25]

You're right. Engineers always want to know what's for lunch.

What would be really funny is if the engineers at GM talked about submarines all day.