Without a doubt, GM is the King of Recalls for 2014. And with 3 more months still to go, CNN says that there are over a million GM vehicles on the road whose recall has yet to be performed.

Two days ago GM announced the recall of Pontiac G8 and Chevrolet Caprice and Cadillac vehicles after disclosing that on some of the vehicles if you hit the ignition key with your knee the key can rotate into a non-running mode. Does that mean it can cause the engine to shut off and the car to go into Accessory Mode? That's not clear but this writer doesn't want to find out. But then again, at least you can still listen to the radio as your car careens down the interstate, folks.

Even worse, the recalled Chevy Caprice model is the police car version.

In fact, the GM recall situation is so bad that GM has set up a special "Recall Center" website so GM owners can go there and find out if their GM-build vehicle is on any recall list. If you own a GM car or truck, having to check a special website for your recalls may not make you feel better about the vehicle's reliability - or about the ability of the company's engineering department either.

Image from USNews

The latest GM recalls total another 60,000 and involve -


2008 - 2009 Pontiac G6
2011 - 2013 Chevrolet Caprice PPV (police patrol vehicles)
2004 - 2007 Cadillac CTS-V
2006 - 2007 Cadillac STS-V
2014 Chevrolet Sonic

So, if you've got a GM vehicle, better safe than sorry so go check the GM Recall Center website and see if you need to call your GM dealer to make a "fix my recall" appointment.

Image from KSPR.com

GM issued 5 more recalls today, covering another 269,000 vehicles. That makes a total of 29 million GM vehicles recalled in the first 31 weeks of the year, 219 days so far this year. 

That's roughly 132,420 GM vehicles recalled per day, 7 days a week. How did things get this bad?

GM recalls announced August 8, 2014:

2002, 2003, 2004 Saturn Vue vehicles (202,115), for ignition key cylinder problems that could lead to a crash and injury. These Saturn vehicles join thousands of other GM ignition key cylinder recalls already released.


2013 Buick Encore and 2013 Cadillac ATS vehicles (48,059), because of seat belt system failure dangers that could lead to a failure to hold the occupant in position during an accident. Remember that song by James Taylor with the line that goes "slip, slidding away" ? It's not funny if it's you that is slipping and sliding away during an accident.

2014, 1015 Chevrolet Impala LT and LTZ sedans (14,940), because of latching problems on a passenger storage compartment that, in an accident, could injure occupants. On August 1 GM instructed dealers not to sell the affected vehicles until they are fixed, but we have been told of at least one dealer in Ohio who has ignored such GM orders and sold vehicles that were on the GM "do not sell" list. Parts that fly around the inside of a car in an accident? That's not supposed to happen, obviously.

2009, 2010 Chevrolet Aveo and 2009 Pontiac G3 vehicles (1,966), for brake system problems that can reduce brake system "performance" - in other words, the car won't stop on time and/or right, increasing the risk of a crash and injury. This problem was the subject of a "secret warranty" that started back in 2012 but has now been called a full-blown recall. This could be a deadly defect if your brakes fail just when you need them.

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2014 Chevrolet Spark minicars (1,919), because of the danger of loose control arm attaching bolts. This potentially deadly defect is so serious that GM is telling owners NOT to drive their vehicles but to have the car "transported" to the nearest Chevy dealer for inspection and any necessary repair. The control arm is a critical part associated with keeping your front wheels on the car, folks. Not something to mess around with.

One has to wonder how many GM cars are built in one day but at this rate, they appear to be recalling them faster than they can build them.

There seems to have been a lot of recalls lately, which has to make you wonder if the car manufacturers are being pushed to recall cars by a concern for safety or a real fear of federal investigations and a public relations disaster.

One thing we know is that the Recall Record has been broken, with more recalls so far this year than in any single entire year since records started being kept. Good grief, are they making them that badly?

Are they being driven to safety by a desire to fix defective vehicles or or are they just driving you nuts by ignoring your lemon while admitting to millions of defective vehicles in other owners' hands?

General Motors announced another 3 million plus vehicles recalled June 16, 2014. Chrysler announced it was recalling Freightliner Cascadia trucks in June too. In June Forest River recalled their 2014 XLR travel trailers. Even BMW recalled a bunch of their motorcycles in June.

Is it just a case of summertime recall blues?

Frankly, with the huge cost of performing recalls, they don't happen for no reason at all. GM already has projected a multi-billion dollar cost for its recalls this year.

It may be that the non-GM companies are doing their recalls now simply because GM is in the news so much with its recall notices that anyone else has a good chance of not having their recalls publicized much right now. It may also be that they have learned "the GM lesson" about hiding 57 cent repairs and getting caught.

Photo from Consumer Reports

For just a few pennies more than a postage stamp, GM could have fixed those ignition switches. But General Motors decided to put the lives of their customers at serious risk and keep it a secret. And when one person sued them over the defect GM already knew existed, GM made them keep their settlement a secret and keep secret the evidence that was uncovered in their lawsuit too. So the next person who died in a GM car from the same defect? They never even knew.

GM put millions of dangerously defective cars on the road and at least 13 people died while they covered it up. Inside G.M., the nation’s largest automaker, some of the 13 victims name appeared on charts and graphs with a date and a single word: “fatal.”

GM got caught and now they are the poster child for big corporate greed that picks profits over the lives of its customers. And they would have gotten away with it entirely but for the media investigations that finally brought their secret into the light. And the Court cases that finally came to light.

For over a decade General Motors used secret agreements to hide the truth about their secret ignition switch settlements. Meanwhile more people were injured or died and far more drivers were frightened when they experienced it too but managed to live through it.

For a decade, GM made its profits and kept the truth silent with its secret settlements. And it was all perfectly legal. You can read how they abused the legal system to keep their customers from knowing about their defects - just click here. Heck, you can read about it in today's USA Today editorial too.

There's a way that maybe you can stop the next big car company from hiding the truth. There's a way that maybe you can force them to stop keeping secrets. It's a change in the law that is now pending in Congress that would stop such secret settlements as the type GM used to keep its customers from knowing about the millions of cars affected by its bad ignition switches. It's called the Sunshine in Litigation Act. But it will never become law without your help.

This bill, now pending in Congress, only requires that a Court approve any request to keep secret information "relevant to the protection of
public health or safety" before that kind of information can be kept from the public by a manufacturer who is in Court charged with selling unsafe products. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? You would not think that any sensible person would want companies to be able to hide the defects they know about. But right now they can. And unless you do something about it, the law won't change.

Companies who build safe consumer products don't need to worry about the Sunshine in Litigation Act. Companies who have secrets to hide are the ones who don't want this law passed. Them and their lobbies who pay and contribute millions of dollars to "influence" the halls of Congress.

The men and women of Congress like the donations, of course. But they also have a healthy respect for letters and emails from back home - that's where you are and that's what you can do right now.

It's easy to support the Sunshine in Litigation Act - just click here to send an email to your congressional representatives. Tell them you have a right to know the next time someone values your life at 57 cents. And you want Congress to make sure someone tells you about it.

Without your help, it will be business as usual. And remember, that was exactly what killed those 13 people.

If you've got a lemon that caused an injury, see a personal injury lawyer near you. If you've just got a lemon that you don't want to get injured by, you can call us. Getting rid of lemons is what we do. Everyday.

While engineers continue to crow about cars that are "better designed" than ever, the recalls just keep mounting. It seems like GM is announcing a recall every couple of days.

It's a big headache to consumers. Since 1990, The Detroit Big 3 have recalled about a third of a billion cars and that's a lot of repair work.

In that same time frame, Japanese car makers have recalled just about 100 million and German brands have recalled only about 15 million. If you look at that alone, it appears the Germans build a better car.

But US car dealers aren't getting rich off the German recalls. The Big 3 dealers are though.

We don't want to sound like we are picking on GM, but industry experts predict that GM alone will spend $2 billion just to fix the roughly 16 million cars it has recalled so far this year.

When it comes to making money, GM dealers are smiling all the way to the bank and so are other dealers doing recall work. And the suppliers who build the replacement parts? They are smiling too, of course. It's big business, fixing things that should have been built right in the first place.

According to Automotive News in October 2013, about a third of all recalls have to do with one of only four car systems - the fuel system, the brakes, airbags and seat belts. When you add the power train, it totals almost half of all recalls.

And Monday, June 16, GM added another 3.16 million cars to its totals so far this year. Got a GM car? Don't be surprised if you get a friendly letter from GM in your mail soon too.

If you get a recall, get your car into the dealer right away. If they don't have the parts yet, then ask the service manager if your car is safe to drive. Anything but an unequivocal "yes" should be taken as a big NO. If so, then tell them you want a free loaner car to use until they get it fixed. If you still don't like the answer, then ask to talk to the dealership manager. Then the owner. Then ask for the factory phone number you can call.


The moral is simple. The squeaky wheel still gets the grease, so keep complaining. And make notes of what each person says to you, date and time. This is where Murphy's Law applies.

As sure as you do it, it'll all work out and you won't need it. And as sure as you don't, you will end up wishing you did. And when push comes to shove, let us do the shoving for you.

Well, Gm must be out to prove that they can recall more cars in 30 days than anyone ever has.

Last month it was 2 million in a series of massive safety recalls that covered virtually all 2003 - 2005 SUV's and crew cab trucks. You can read more details by going to this web page: (click here).

This month, it's another 305,000 SUV's for bad tail light systems being recalled. This time its 2003 and 2004 model year vehicles, including Olds Bravada and Chevy Trailblazer vehicles.

Last year Gm had the most recalls (in fact they started off 2004 with a massive recall in January of 824,00 vehicles) and this year Gm's off to a good start to stay #1.

Is it any wonder that last quarter Gm reported a $1.1 billion dollar loss? So how do they plan to cope if these kind of losses continue? Very cleverly, apparently. They seem to be reading a page out of United Airlines' bankruptcy court playbook ...

The Detroit News is reporting: "Should GM continue to burn cash, the automaker could withdraw up to $6 billion in cash over the next 18 months from a $20 billion fund set up to provide health care for retired U.S. union workers and their dependents, Chief Financial Officer John Devine told reporters and analysts on a conference call. An analyst with Sanford Bernstein said in a recent report that GM could use the threat of refusing to pay for retiree health care to force the United Auto Workers union to pay more for health-care costs." Oh, that's just great. Blue collar pays for white collar mistakes?

To paraphrase Wharton, whatever the U.S. car companies have learned in the past, they have learned the hard way. The opening sentence of GM's 2003 annual report seems to have predicted both 2004 and now 2005 for GM: "Here's what's new about GM's strategy this year: Nothing."

But don't worry, says BusinessWeek. GM is not in danger of going bankrupt while it still has a huge cash stockpile. The fact is Gm has a ton of ready cash. Gm's got $19.8 billion in cash, marketable securities, and money it can tap from a pre-funded retiree benefits fund. That doesn't even count $8.3 billion Gm has available from bank credit lines and probably another $5 billion GM could pull out of profitable General Motors Acceptance Corp.

Once upon a time quality mattered ... but then again so did the customer. Worse yet, employees used to matter too. When those things matter most again, Gm's prospects can probably change.

For now, if you've got a lemon Chevrolet, lemon Buick, lemon Pontiac, lemon Saturn, or any lemon GM product, email or call us 1-888-331-6422 Toll Free. Getting rid of lemons and getting your money back, that's what we do. Every day.