Around 10 million owners of General Motors vehicles with faulty ignition switches that can cause unintended key rotation won’t be eligible for any sort of compensation from lawyer Kenneth Feinberg’s uncapped compensation fund, according to Fortune. Feinberg was hired by GM to set up a compensation fund to payout victims of crashes in vehicles affected by the initial recall of 2.5 million small cars in February.
The Feinberg protocol was intended from the beginning to only pay victims or those had lost loved ones if they owned a Chevrolet Cobalt, Saturn Ion or other GM model wrapped up in first recall. Feinberg’s only limitation from GM was “that only certain eligible vehicles are subject to this program,” he said. In total 17 models are eligible for the protocol, but there are other vehicles, like the 5th generation Chevrolet Camaro, that suffer from similar key rotation issues and won’t be included.
GM argues that the problems in the other 10 million cars recalled since March aren’t as serious or as dangerous as those in the February recall. GM spokesperson Alan Adler said extensive testing had been done on all models recalled for ignition switch problems and GM thought that “nothing suggested that it was warranted” to compensate owners of the other vehicles. Adler said GM received complaints about the other cars, but nothing as serious as the 13 deaths which occurred in Cobalts and other related models.
Owners of vehicles not included in Feinberg’s compensation program would have to take GM to court to reach a settlement. The automaker currently faces a class-action lawsuit filed by customers not included in the Feinberg program who claim their cars lost value due to the recalls. Steve Berman, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, told Fortune he thinks the Feinberg fund should include all cars with faulty switches and that GM might have only done it for the sake of their corporate image.
“It was maybe a partial offer to ease the congressional heat a little bit,” Berman said. “Congress has a short attention span.”
Comments
GM is not ignoring anyone and has been more then generous in the number of car they are covering and many of the people who are being compensated for their own poor actions and condition to deal with an issue with ignition.
As for the Camaro people they are generally as a whole will not take their cars in as they do not want the recall that they know is BS and be left with a FOB with the key hacked out of it. If you follow the Camaro Forums this was never a problem and they are more mad that GM wants to cut their key for no reason and leave them with a messed up FOB than anything.
This is just like the story on the dropping resale values. It is BS too as first off the cars are trading just as much as they were and the prices will be dropping as most of these cars are 14-8 years old. How much do you really think a 12 year old Cobalt or Ion is really worth anyways even with low miles. Not much,
I know first hand the HHR prices are just the same as 2 years ago and the SS models in many cases with low miles are now worth $4K – $6K than they were just in 2012. Since production stopped low mileage examples have gone from $12K to $1K-18K. Not bad for a car that you may have paid $21,000 for in 08. They are taking a similar path as the SS Tahoe and Hummers.
I’d like to offer a different perspective to that of Scott3. GM is CERTAINLY ignoring US (owners of a 2005 Buick Lacrosse), and, I believe, ignoring many others through its sham solution of replacing the key alone. Before I delve into that – you may be right that people shouldn’t be compensated for their “poor actions” of buying anything GM – as more intelligent and wealthy people probably don’t – but, some of us didn’t know how immoral of a company it was.
That said, it’s been proven by an outside lab that there is an INTERNAL issue to the key switch itself – namely, in an internal spring that is off by 1.6 mm, and fails to put the appropriate spring loading on the switch. This means INHERENTLY, even if one had NOTHING on one’s keychain – even going over a pot hole could jar the key from Run to Accessory, at which point – the car becomes a living coffin: the air bags do not deploy, and power steering and power breaking is off. Good luck using your driving “skill” at 60 mph on a highway, probably at 7 AM, if you work, to navigate your way around that piss poor engineering.
Personally, I HOPE the prices on these vehicles drop – I hope the whole company goes under for that matter! There is a course engineers have in college – and it’s not for nothing: engineering ETHICS. When there are two possible failure modes on a part, you don’t just address the cheapest and most convenient one to you financially.
We are saving up to replace this completely lost investment in a Honda. I’ve never heard of such issues from them.
I would like to take a little of your time today to express how I feel about
the cover-up that General Motors perpetrated against the American people. They
recently admitted that for years they were selling vehicles with faulty ignition
switches and failed to recall any of these vehicles until recently when they
were called on the “proverbial carpet.” GM set up a victims compensation fund
to include only certain makes/models of vehicles. This fund did not include all
the vehicles that were recalled. Who gives them the right to pick and choose?
How can they decide that my daughter’s life was not significant enough? She was
significant to me, her mother. She was significant to the child that she left
behind that was only 16 months old. She was significant to her brothers who
miss her presence in their lives each and every day. Would it be a different
story if it was their child? I hope they never have to find out how it feels to
lose a child. It is the most devastating life event that one would ever have to
endore. It was stated that GM didn’t feel the impact of the additional vehicles
included in the recall warranted inclusion. Thus, no compensation was alloted
to these vehicle owners. If they had a claim, take it to court. Why should I
have to go to court, hire a lawyer, to prove that GM was negligent and that my
child was of significance to her family.
Later, after the fund was set up, they added additional vehicles to that list of
recalls. To date, none of these additional vehicles have been added to the
compensation fund. My question is why not? Are the families affected by these
faulty vehicles less important?
In many states, Maine being one of them, have statutes of limitations on how
long you have to file a wrongful death suit. In Maine it is only two years. Many
of these recalled vehicles date back to the late 1990’s and are long past their
two year requirement. No lawyer is willing to take on the battle due to the many,
many hours and money it would cost to even give it a try with no promise of a
positive outcome.
I feel that certain things should happen. GM needs to be accountable to all the
families of ALL the vehicles in the recall, not just a select few. I also believe
that states that have a very short statute of time to file should be exempt in cases
like the one that GM is involved in. They recalled late model 1990 vehicles on
July 3, 2014. Prior to that time people that purchased a GM vehicle did so with
good faith and trust that the product was safe. States should have an exception
rule to the statute for this type of claim. The time should start when General Motors
ACTUALLY announced the recall. That would be JULY 2014. I also feel that the vehicles
that were recalled after the compensation fund was established should either be added
or a second fund should be set up with the vehicles that were not included in the
initial fund.
THE INFORMATION BELOW IS THE VEHICLE THAT I OWNED. THIS IS ALSO THE VEHICLE THAT MY
DAUGHTER LOST HER LIFE IN AT THE AGE OF 23. THIS WAS ONE OF THE VEHICLES INVOLVED IN
THE GM COVER-UP AND RECALL –
GM(General Motors)Faulty Ignition Switch Cover-Up
1998-2002 Oldsmobile Intrigue
There is a risk, under certain conditions, that your ignition switch may move out of the
“run” position, resulting in a partial loss of electrical power and turning off the engine.
This risk increases if your key ring is carrying added weight (such as more keys or the key
fob) or your vehicle experiences rough road conditions or other jarring or impact related
events. If the ignition switch is not in the run position, the air bags may not deploy if
the vehicle is involved in a crash, increasing the risk of injury or fatality.
I bought this vehicle in February 2003. It was involved in the fatal crash in July 2003.
That is only five months. In that five months the vehicle shut of on me twice after
hitting a bump in the road. However when I took it into a local mechanic to have it
checked, the problem could not be duplicated. Little did we know at the
time that the keyring caused the problem.