General Motors knew it was opening itself up for criticism when it recalled nearly 2.6 million small cars over faulty ignition switches. As expected, the media coverage of the recall has been persistent and unrelenting, with almost every major North American news network touching on the story to some extent. Earlier this week, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart jumped on board, skewering the automaker in the opening rant of his show for its handling of the recall.
Stewart’s rant starts off with him touching on Dan Akerson’s introduction of Mary Barra as CEO in December, teasing the former company head about referring to Barra as a “car gal”. He then delves into the recall, playing clips from news reports which describe how the faulty ignition switch may lead to power being cut off from the power steering, airbag and brakes. He also plays clips which mention the 13 deaths linked to the faulty switch and that GM potentially knew about the problem as far back as 2001.
The rant ends with Stewart dropping the bombshell that GM may not be liable for claims which involve accidents that happened before the automaker’s emergence from federal bankruptcy. The rant is pretty comical, no matter how you feel about the recall, it’s just a shame his producers couldn’t do enough research to realize the Cobalt on the screen is a Russian market car, in no way involved in the recall. We sympathize with them though, punching “U.S. Market Chevrolet Cobalt” into Google Images is a pretty difficult task. Scroll down to watch the rant. There is some bleeped out curse words, so if you’re at work, you might want to bookmark this one until you get home.
Comments
It’s easier to criticize engineers which have to conceive flawless and complex cars but these tv guys are incapable to find a good picture of a US chevy cobalt! Fortunately, the people’s life doesn’t depend on them…
The producers are looking to produce an instantaneously visceral reaction to news, and if they’re going to do a quick google search for an image of a Chevrolet Cobalt, they’re only going to go with what’s immediate and what doesn’t have any licence fees to pay for the images’ usage.
To them, it’s just a car with a Bowtie emblem and the file name says ‘cobalt’ in it. If they actually did a fact check, it would eat into production time.
Note the South-American Chevrolet Cobalt in the graphic.
I don’t understand why the media is attacking this GM recall so much , All the Auto manufactures are guilty of doing the same, they will all hold out until they are made to make a recall. People die every day in autos. Should Gm stop making automobiles ? A lot of the blame is the consumer that want all the new innovations add to the Autos and trucks that can cause problems. I read it on these forums every day how the reason the RAM out sales the Chevy trucks is they offer more innovation and how Ford is ahead of all them because they offer more new ideas. remember the Pinto Fires the Jeep Liberity fires and Chrysler did not want to recall them, the problem with Toyota car jumping out of gear they took it to court trying to denial it. I am from 50’s and 60’s I have seen a lot of improvements in Safety on the Automobiles.
48 I agree. GM did screw up and should deal with this but the media has been over the top for even much worse situations. More have died before and larger issues have been covered up and they never got this much blasting.
Media today love to hop on hot topics and GM has been a hot topic since the bail out.
The media today is not longer objective or responsible as it once was.
In the past you could not tell a news mans political feeling as like Walter Cronkite who was a bleeding liberal but he did his job well as we never knew his leanings till he retired. While I do not agree with his leaning I do respect the job he did as he did it right.
As the old saying goes if it bleeds it leads.
If they were so concerned with only the deaths then they should be after the Drunk Drivers as they have killed more in these cars than any ignition.
What is even worse today is people go to a Half Ass comedian for news today. This guy like Stewart and Bill Mahr were too lousy at their trade they had to try news. The sad part is people take them seriously.
I shouldn’t be shocked or disappointed about what I have read above. Let us analyse this. We have members arguing about the correctness of the image on the background of the video. Seriously, folks? That is so…irrelevant. Then we have somebody saying people die in cars every day. Well sure. But clearly you have not died in a car that shut down in one of the middle lanes on a 4-lane highway at 70+ mph and then get struck from behind by an 18 wheeler. All because of a $0.57 part. And then we hear that all the manufacturers do the same thing. Oh and I suppose that solves this issue. It’s got to be right if everybody does it, right? Sounding a LOT like a 16 year old explaining his new found love affair with pot to his mom.
I don’t think the argument is whether or not GM should stop building cars. This sort of behaviour by ANY manufacturer…GM, Ford, Toyota, Apple, Samsung, Sony…I couldn’t care less…has to stop. It’s a pity that GM is the one that is caught in the shitstorm with the fan running, but so be it. Barra has taken a very brave decision to tackle this head on, and that will be respected in the days to come. Right now everybody is a bit pissed off and that is to be expected. As long as GM holds the course to right this situation, history will absolve it. But for now, us GM fans simply must get into “take our licks” mode and not try to defend what was clearly bullshit. If somebody that I knew and loved was killed because of something like this I would be out for some vengeance right about now. And so would all of you…GM fan or not.
There he go as usual ,a troll that can’t help but be anti GM period , he does it every time he makes a comment, well I shouldn’t be surprised. I have experienced it personally, My mother got killed by a young man driving a regular cab pickup with his 5 year old son standing up on the seat, as my mom was crossing the street at a crossway, She was more than half way across when she was hit, the young man said he didn’t see her , No of course not, he was to busy keeping his son from going out the front windshield when he was applying his brakes. I don’t blame the manufacture of the truck, for not having better brakes.
@oldchevyman48
I just want to start out by saying sorry for your loss, however while your argument is sound with regards to where the blame should be placed in this situation. The situation with what happened in the case of the defective ignition switch, is by no means something that can be controlled by the consumer. This was a manufacturing defect, which is entirely the fault of GM, consumers will only get something fixed when it has to be fixed. The act of getting a repair done on a car is either enacted by A) a failure of the part, which in this case has happened, and proven to be fatal, or B) the vehicle is inspected, which even through an inspection something like this would not have appeared.
Whether the engineers are to blame, I would say no they are not, engineers are to company executives what architects are to engineers, just replace money with physics when comparing an engineer to a board of directors.
With regards to Richard’s comments, while he has be critical of the current generation of GM vehicles, in this case he is not actually attacking GM directly, because he is absolutely correct. Companies should be far more accountable to the public they sell to, and ensure that their safety is top priority, to be frank I’m almost tempted to never buy a GM vehicle after what has transpired. That said however, Toyota is on that chopping block too after its acceleration problem. However, with the stance that Barra and Toyota have taken, hopefully this should not be a problem again in either case. Or else they will lose customers and go out of business, in my case, my sister has one of these cars, if she got hurt in any way, knowing that it was because of a $0.57 part, I’m sorry they lose me as a customer.
Also, just a general comment here, this is not the first time that something like this has happened. Remember Ralph Nader’s “Unsafe at Any Speed”? The book alone cost GM the Chevy Corvair, but it turns out that it was about as safe as any other road going vehicle at the time. This excerpt from the Daily Show, has a point. I mean really? Just because of bankruptcy, they are not liable to the people that have died? That’s like saying I’m not responsible for doing crack while I’m on a drunken stoup-er (looking at you Rob Ford).
This is a legal issue.
Right now all those plaintiff lawyers are licking their chops. Just waiting to have the bankruptcy laws thrown out of the window. They will have a whole new set of ways of increasing their wealth (and giving a few dollars to the folks who actually deserve the money).
I believe, that if they can, the new GM will give financial reparations to the ones who had actual losses for this recall. The reason I said, if they can, is if the new GM gives money for old GM issues they may open new GM to ALL lawsuits and they do not want to do this.
I think all vehicles should be recalled in this country.
Every vehicle has a serious defect that causes loss of power steering. 100% have a defect that causes loss of power brakes.
What is this defect? Manufacturers have misengineered the vehicles so that when they run out of gas the powertrain turns off! Most now have a flasher that tells the driver that they will soon run out of gas BUT THE MANUFACTURERS ALLOW THE DRIVER TO KEEP DRIVING!! Even though the manufacturer knows the car will soon run out of gas!!!
And this is not a low frequency occurrence! I would bet 100’s of vehicles a day run out of gas! This defect must be stopped! All vehicles should be required to be recalled and the manufacturers must somehow not allow this to happen.
One suggestion is to add unobtanium gas that never runs out. Another is that when the flasher starts flashing you give the driver 10 miles to get gas and if they do not small shocks start coming thru the steering wheel until they get off the road. I am sure our politicians can come up with many more solutions.
62 you missed the worst defect a car could have, a lose troll nut behind the wheel name Richard or magrius. LOL!
Auto news had an article today that the Delphi document that “proved” the release engineer lied about the part change only says that he agreed the switch meets the drawing specifications. There is no paperwork from GM’s side YET that says to release it into production.
BUT in thinking about this I wonder if a part number or ECA would be required? The drawing did not change. The part finally meets the specs. So no part number change is needed?
Anyway that is the way I see it.
That may be the case as if there were no changes they do not change part numbers upon approval and only if there is a change.
At least that has been my understanding.
Also the name of who signed off should be on each engineering drawing at each step.
I have an old GMC blue print from the 20’s that has this as well as a Pontiac drawing from the 80’s that has similar approvals.
Well fellows you all misunderstood me, No where did i say that GM should not recall the vehicle’s involved with the ignition switch problem, my comment was about the media and now the late tv shows. Now I agree with 62, about the Legal issue’s