Chevrolet Camaro Recall Issued by GM Due to Ignition Switch Problems

Defective ignition switches continue to cause problems for General Motors (GM), which indicated late last week that it is now recalling all current generation Chevrolet Camaros due to the risk that the vehicles may suddenly shut off, potentially causing the vehicle to stall or the airbags to fail in an accident. 

The pending Chevrolet Camaro recall was announced on June 13, which will impact more than a half million cars.

Although the auto maker indicates that the problems are unrelated to defective ignition switch recalls issued earlier this year, which impacted more than 2.5 million Chevrolet, Pontiac and Saturn vehicles, the Chevy Camero recall also involves a risk that the vehicles may shut off if the ignition switch is jarred.

GM warns that when driver’s sit close to the steering column in Chevrolet Camaro vehicles, the driver’s knee can hit the key FOB, causing the key to move out of the “run” position. This can cause the vehicle to stall.

The auto maker has received at least 18 complaints about Camaros losing power over the last several years, but it was only since April that the company received two reports of the car being shut off by knee bumps.

The recall affects 464,712 Camaros from model years 2010-2014 distributed throughout the United States. When vehicles sold in Canada and Mexico are added in, the total number of affected cars is 511,528.

Affected vehicle owners will be informed by letter that they can bring their cars into a dealership for repairs free of charge and that they will be provided with courtesy transportation as needed.

According to GM, the company discovered the problem during internal testing after the larger ignition switch recall.

“Discovering and acting on this issue quickly is an example of the new norm for product safety at GM,” Jeff Boyer, vice president of GM Global Safety, said in the recall announcement.

Boyer was recently installed in the newly created position in the wake of the GM ignition switch recall, which has tarnished the company’s reputation and raised questions about the safety of its vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) fined GM $35 million for delaying the similar recall, which affected various Chevrolet Cobalts, Chevrolet HHRs, Pontiac G5, Pontiac Solstice, Pontiac Pursuit, Saturn Ion and Saturn Sky vehicles sold between 2005 and 2010.

In that recall, the auto maker indicated that the ignition could be turned off if heavy key chains were used or if the ignition was jarred, such as may occur in an accident. If this occurs, it may deactivate airbags and also cause the vehicle to stall.

The NHTSA and a GM internal investigation determined that some within the company knew about the problem for more than a decade before the vehicles were recalled. The GM internal investigation decried a “pattern of incompetence” that has led the company to make sweeping changes to its vehicle safety program.

GM faces a growing number of ignition switch recall lawsuits over the recall affecting Cobalts and other vehicles. The lawsuits consist of both personal injury and wrongful death claims by people who were injured or lost loved ones when air bags failed to deploy during accidents, and economic lawsuits filed by investors and vehicle owners who say that GM’s actions led to a depreciation of the value of the cars and the company’s stocks.

Photo Courtesy of Mrs. FireMom via Flickr Creative Commons