General Motors today says it plans to soon recall an additional 1.3 million vehicles in the U.S. because the cars may experience a sudden loss of electric power steering assist, bringing the number of vehicles it has recalled in the last two month to 6.1 million.
The automaker also says it will take a charge of up to $750 million to its first quarter earnings to make repairs to the recently recalled cars, trucks and CUVs. GM previously said it would cost $300 million.
The latest recall comes on the heels of a highly publicized campaign calling back 2.6 million Chevrolet, Pontiac and Saturn small cars and CUVs for faulty ignition switches linked to 13 deaths and 31 crashes.
GM CEO Mary will appear before two congressional panels this week to address the ignition-switch recall.
The latest recall affects the following models: the Chevrolet Malibu (all ’04 and ’05 models and some ’06, ’08 and ’09 models); the Chevrolet Malibu Maxx (all ’04 and ’05 models, and some ’06 models); the non-turbocharged Chevrolet HHR (some ’09 and ’10 models); the Chevy Cobalt (some ’10 models); the Saturn Aura (some ’08 and ’09 models); the Saturn Ion (all ’04-’07 models); and the Pontiac G6 (all ’05 and some ’06 and ’08 and ’09 models).
The recall also will address service parts installed into certain vehicles before May 31, 2010 under a previous safety recall.
GM says depending on the vehicle it will replace at no charge either the power-steering motor, the steering column, the power-steering motor control unit or a combination of the steering column and the power-steering motor control unit. Customers who paid for the repairs previously will be eligible for reimbursement.
The automaker says an additional 309,160 non-turbo HHRs from ’06-’08, as well as several hundred ’09 models, and 96,324 Ions from ’03 not subject to the recalls will receive lifetime warranties for replacement of the EPS motor.
“With these safety recalls and lifetime warranties, we are going after every car that might have this problem, and we are going to make it right,” Jeff Boyer, vice president-Global Vehicle Safety at GM, says in a statement.
“We have recalled some of these vehicles before for the same issue and offered extended warranties on others, but we did not do enough.”
