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Ivan Leon
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- May 27, 2008
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Last week, under threat of a federal investigation, GM recalled almost every Hummer H3 it had built, because of a potentially dangerous design problem.
Our analysis of a government database shows complaints of similar problems from owners of Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon, two trucks built with the same components as the fire-prone H3 and in the same plant.
Why haven’t those trucks been recalled too?
Jalopnik scoured through nearly 1,200 complaints in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website and in online forums, to discover that owners have been reporting fires on Colorado and Canyon trucks for years — but no recall has happened yet.
The problem seems to revolve around one tiny component, as recalls often do.
In the case of the Hummer H3, it’s a minor electrical system involving a connector, a resistor, and the grounding block in the heating and air-conditioning blower motor assembly. The whole system can short out, causing anything from a slight melting of the wiring harness all the way up to and including a major fire that leaves the car a blackened husk.
Daily Kanban editor and BloombergView contributor Ed Niedermeyer, pointed out on Twitter last week that a few owners of the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon reported a curiously similar problem.
How common was the problem? According to our analysis of the Office of Defect Investigations database, nearly 70 owners reported fires, they believe to be related to the heating and cooling system.
In its announcement for the H3 recall, GM said that the problem stems from overheating caused by drivers using their blowers at “high- and medium-high speeds."
But the issue also runs in the other direction. Drivers using their blowers at higher settings seems to be partly a result of the overheating problem, too, not just a cause.
The pattern, as related by many Hummer owners in their NHTSA complaints, is that the system shorts out in sequence. First, the initial fan setting goes out, then the second, then the third, and finally, the fourth.
And then you may have a fire on your hands.
Read the full article here:
http://jalopnik.com/why-hasnt-gm-recalled-these-two-trucks-with-a-similar-f-1717511135
Our analysis of a government database shows complaints of similar problems from owners of Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon, two trucks built with the same components as the fire-prone H3 and in the same plant.
Why haven’t those trucks been recalled too?
Jalopnik scoured through nearly 1,200 complaints in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website and in online forums, to discover that owners have been reporting fires on Colorado and Canyon trucks for years — but no recall has happened yet.
The problem seems to revolve around one tiny component, as recalls often do.
In the case of the Hummer H3, it’s a minor electrical system involving a connector, a resistor, and the grounding block in the heating and air-conditioning blower motor assembly. The whole system can short out, causing anything from a slight melting of the wiring harness all the way up to and including a major fire that leaves the car a blackened husk.
Daily Kanban editor and BloombergView contributor Ed Niedermeyer, pointed out on Twitter last week that a few owners of the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon reported a curiously similar problem.
How common was the problem? According to our analysis of the Office of Defect Investigations database, nearly 70 owners reported fires, they believe to be related to the heating and cooling system.
In its announcement for the H3 recall, GM said that the problem stems from overheating caused by drivers using their blowers at “high- and medium-high speeds."
But the issue also runs in the other direction. Drivers using their blowers at higher settings seems to be partly a result of the overheating problem, too, not just a cause.
The pattern, as related by many Hummer owners in their NHTSA complaints, is that the system shorts out in sequence. First, the initial fan setting goes out, then the second, then the third, and finally, the fourth.
And then you may have a fire on your hands.
Read the full article here:
http://jalopnik.com/why-hasnt-gm-recalled-these-two-trucks-with-a-similar-f-1717511135
