Now Chrysler involved with GM ignition recall?

My wife is pissed! Just got off the phone with the Recall Center. Told her the think her 2009 Caravan could be involved but can't tell her now.

"If it is, you'll be notified in approximately two months".

Curious to see if it's real because the key is just a fat plastic thing you insert into the dashboard slot.

Are the recalled GM keys like this? [URL=http://s265.photobucket.com/user/derekrichardson/media/Mobile%20Uploads/image-43.jpg.html][/URL]

My 2011 van has a recall with a similar time delay, but it is not related to ignition switches, I think it has something to do with moisture getting inside the window motors, but I cannot recall (HA!) exactly.

I got a recall notice on my Dodge truck in late December. Something about a ball joint snapping and careening to my death. The truck's been back to the dealer a couple of times since for service, and they still haven't actually managed to swap out the bad ball joint and prevent my firey demise.

I'm gonna go buy a Moog part and replace it proactively, I think. If I wait for Dodge to do it, I'll have died three times over by the time they get around to it. They seem to be more busy cranking up the boost on the Cummins engines and putting larger numbers on the doors than engineering a fix and building parts.

Did GM and Chrysler buy thier ignition parts from the same low-rent supplier or what?

In reply to ebonyandivory:

Fiat?

I have a recall on our Solstice GXP coupe and our Wrangler that I haven't got around to doing anything about yet. The Pontiac doesn't get driven much, so whatever, but the Jeep is my Wife's DD. Funny I had a recall on my 95 Dodge 3500 that still hadn't been done when I traded it off this year!

GM keeps sending me recall notices for the oil leaks on my 01 GP GTP where they replace the front valve cover gasket and throw away the factory spark plug wire loom... i replaced the gasket myself, and i like the factory loom... so i'm not taking it in, and have told the local dealer so. he said they'd put it in the computer and i'd stop getting the notices- that was 4 notices ago...

i think they just want to do some evil Big Brother stuff to my car to track me... maybe they don't like that i unplugged the Big Brother Box in the trunk and took the Big Brother Antenna off the rear window.. yeah, that's gotta be it..

On the news this morning they showed a chart of all the different recall effected GM vehicles going back more than ten years.

I couldn't help but notice that the only SAAB was the US built 9-7 (rebadged trailblazer).

Maybe, instead of shutting them down, they should have given the Swedes the whole company. They were right when they said they needed to redesign every part

In reply to ebonyandivory:

This is most likely the CYA of any industry kicking into affect. In the past automakers thought they would be legally covered by just printing warnings to not have a heavy keychain on he key while in the ignition. Now all of a sudden there is this big firstorm around GMs fault for not redesigning the key cylinder to hold in the on or running position better. My understanding based on limited reports I have seen is that it is weight related.

So all automakers are running durability on similar era cars up to current fleets with assumption that we all want to carry 15lbs of stuff hanging off the key while it is in the ignition.

Don't worry unless you do carry bunches of stuff on your key chain.

A Solstice GXP I co-drive fairly regularly has suffered some of the ignition issues people describe. The owner has no keychain at all.

The key in the pic is called a FOBIK, that's the type involved and it's a Mercedes thing. It's a flaming pile of shi+. And it's one of the reasons I diss the German car builders every chance I get.

The earlier recall (L25) is a detent sleeve that goes around the switch that adds a little tension. I don't know if that's going to be the same thing done to the added vehicles, we haven't been told anything about it yet. Thanks again, NHTSA and the lamestream media.

Keith, yours should have the N49 or N63 for the left ball joint stud snapping off and yes I have seen a few break, mostly on the big ones (4500 and up). On some of those trucks there is an interim fix which involves realigning the left tie rod to lessen the chance of breakage.

novaderrik, the dealer cannot legally do what he said, he was just trying to get you off the phone and out of his face. The only legal way to close a recall is to do the repair. Used to be VW would allow a claim to be filed with 'owner refused work' but I think even they have quit that, way too much liability involved.

Yup, I'm in line for N49. It just seems that an industry that is dedicated to engineering vehicles and producing them in mass quantities should be able to produce enough parts to fix a recalled vehicle given a minimum of six months. It's been six months since I heard about it, I assume Dodge has known longer. Apparently the breakage tends to happen at low speeds, so having a spare on hand should be a good middle ground.

Curmudgeon wrote: novaderrik, the dealer cannot legally do what he said, he was just trying to get you off the phone and out of his face. The only legal way to close a recall is to do the repair. Used to be VW would allow a claim to be filed with 'owner refused work' but I think even they have quit that, way too much liability involved.

So take the loom off and bring the car in to have them do the recall. When you get the car back.. put the loom back on

I have a friend who owns a late model Challenger and an Chevy HHR, she received a recall notice on both of them during the same week. Both would require the vehicle being dropped off and left at the dealership. She is not happy.

Had the recall work done on the wifes old grand prix. It didn't catch on fire while we owned it.

Had a recall done on the wifes current Hyundai and the headliner hasn't killed her yet. But we did get some money back because they lied about the mpg's.

ebonyandivory wrote: [URL=http://s265.photobucket.com/user/derekrichardson/media/Mobile%20Uploads/image-43.jpg.html][/URL]

The rental T&C I had a few years back had that key. I was looking all over it for the button you push to make the key pop out

mad_machine wrote:

Curmudgeon wrote: novaderrik, the dealer cannot legally do what he said, he was just trying to get you off the phone and out of his face. The only legal way to close a recall is to do the repair. Used to be VW would allow a claim to be filed with 'owner refused work' but I think even they have quit that, way too much liability involved.

So take the loom off and bring the car in to have them do the recall. When you get the car back.. put the loom back on

I already put valve cover gaskets in it because the rear one (the one they don't fix in the recall) was leaking. Fel Pro puts 2 gaskets and enough of the bolt seal things in the box, so I put them both in.. then a month later I started getting the notices.. I've known enough GM mechanics and parts guys to know that none of my cars are ever going into their greasy hands to get anything done...

DaveEstey wrote: A Solstice GXP I co-drive fairly regularly has suffered some of the ignition issues people describe. The owner has no keychain at all.

Well there you go real life data. I never trust reports but since I am not GM and my GM friend doesn't work on that side of the business I haven't had much detailed information other than the reports of GM stating it was related to weight on the ignition key cylinder.

Keith Tanner wrote: Yup, I'm in line for N49. It just seems that an industry that is dedicated to engineering vehicles and producing them in mass quantities should be able to produce enough parts to fix a recalled vehicle given a minimum of six months. It's been six months since I heard about it, I assume Dodge has known longer. Apparently the breakage tends to happen at low speeds, so having a spare on hand should be a good middle ground.

This is a real failure mode and with any product the risk may be unacceptably high at a rate of 0.5% of the products produced. Even at 50% risk your truck could still be in the OK 50% bracket. The Dodge Dealer should have the parts, this is a very very old recall issue, maybe it was expanded to more vehicles? They are putting themselves and Chrysler LLC at risk for not jumping on this one for you.

Of the big 3 Chrysler was/is very small and makes very few parts internally. Their supplier could just as easily refused to make the parts without a 1000% markup if the original contract allowed them to. Also suppliers that are too small to give free parts, per the contract, to Chrysler to cover the warranty will just file for bankruptcy. It happened when I was in the auto industry back in the early 00s. I am sure it still happens.

Or as what happened to my cousin, they replaced it but recorded it under the wrong VIN, then the dealership accused her of trying to get a car that wasn't under the recall repaired. LOL. She just wanted to know if they did the work. I took a look at it and confirmed for her that it was ok.

You'd think. I just had a very awkward conversation with a service rep. She says she has 600 trucks on her list for repair and they've received 75 parts for repairs so far. The new parts were only released 30 days ago. So I'll be driving around for a few more months. She did her best to throw Chrysler under the bus until I pointed out that she was essentially a representative as Chrysler since I'm not allowed to work with them directly.

Apparently taking good parts off the 2014 trucks in the lot is not an acceptable solution from their point of view.

I was assured that the failure isn't that bad, it usually happens at parking lot speeds. Which doesn't explain the NHTSA recall notice of course, but I was told that was basically Obama being a Bob Costas. So we're all good then.

That kind of thing appears to be on the radar of NHTSA, but they have limited regulation in place to back it up.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/safety-agency-chrysler-recall-slow-24400077

Oh yes, we have one of those Jeeps too Luckily, it has the tow package, aka "rear impact gas tank protection bar".

Keith Tanner wrote: Apparently taking good parts off the 2014 trucks in the lot is not an acceptable solution from their point of view.

That would be very hard to do while documenting sufficient proof for NHTSA and owners like you, that it was removed correctly and is in good working order.

The parts for the recall can be tricky to source and roll out to the field. The approved plan presented to NHTSA could include additional inspection by equipment that needed to be designed, constructed, and validated online. In one of my situations we had to wait for court approval to seize our tooling out of the bankrupted supplier's building. In the meantime we begged a competitor to make the parts for us with overtime hours. By the time we got our new supplier setup to start producing parts we were months after the point when we could have made all the recall parts if all the legal and resourcing stuff didn't happen.