Filed under: Recalls/TSBs, Safety, Chevrolet
2009 Impala recalled over faulty airbags
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says passenger airbags in some 2009 Chevrolet Impalas may have a potentially deadly flaw. Not only could the devices fail to inflate in a crash, but the inflator tube could rupture and hurl pieces of it at passengers. Sounds pretty bad, but there is good news for most Impala owners. According to NHTSA, the recall will only affect 79 Impalas, and not all of them will need replacement. Airbags found to be faulty will be completely replaced under the recall campaign at GM service centers.
Notices will be mailed out sometime this month to Impala owners who need to have their vehicles inspected. You can read the entire NHTSA description here.
[Source: Inside Line]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
john 5:42PM (10/10/2008)
The chevy impala is the king of recalls. I'm glad I got rid of mine.
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big j 2:50AM (10/11/2008)
I thought this Impala was supposed to be Chevy's shining star in terms of reliability/quality?
Serge K. 5:49PM (10/10/2008)
GM should just recall the entire fleet of them and instead give owners a Civic.
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JZeke 5:50PM (10/10/2008)
Isn't the Malibu about the same size on the inside as the Impala? Kinda seems redundant if it is...
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alex 7:47PM (10/10/2008)
it won't be redundant when the impala goes RWD. and even if the impala doesn't end up going rwd (like some rumors suggest due to CAFE increases), it was supposed to when the malibu was redesigned (and enlarged)
why not the LS2LS7? 9:39PM (10/10/2008)
No, it's not really the same, and the trunk is a lot bigger on the Impala.
jv2k 11:07PM (10/10/2008)
Nope.
The trunk in the impalla is also much bigger.
Upthewazzu 5:54PM (10/10/2008)
Uh oh, 79 rental cars back to the dealership.
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JDMlover 5:56PM (10/10/2008)
SHAME
getting better my ass...
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Torrent 7:22PM (10/10/2008)
Damn. It's only 79 cars. not 579 like Toyota.
Eric Liberatore 5:57PM (10/10/2008)
79 cars made the news? Wow.
And yes, I've wondered the same thing about the Wimpala. What's the difference really from the Malibu except even more boring design? Which one is suppose to be the competition for the Taurus?
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Cardude 5:58PM (10/10/2008)
GM, damn it can't you do anything right? This is one of your friggin' best sellers and you can't make sure they put it together correctly? Damn, the stupidity of this company makes my blood boil sometimes!
As for the stupid, annoying "smallcarsaregodandthe ONLYcarsthatshouldexist" comments here, a Civic is not an appropriate replacement for a full size car. If those people wanted a stupid small car, then I'm sure they would have bought one. Then, there is nothing "redundant" about the Impala. The Malibu grew because it is brand new. The Impala dates to 2000. That means that it is time for a new bigger Imapala, that's all.
This hatred of big cars is so annoying.
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PiCASSO 6:24PM (10/10/2008)
Does GM make the airbags themselves? No, it outsources it to a supplier. Before you go and blame GM, determine first what happened and why only 79-vehicles (of the approximately 200,000 that are sold) are affected.
Tim 9:38PM (10/10/2008)
You are an idiot. 79 cars? Here, GM makes the blog over 79 cars but it takes a million Toyotas to make it on the blog. At least these engines are not sludging like the craptastic 'yota's. AND at least GM is doing something about it instead of screwing their customers.
To answer your question, GM is doing A LOT right. It just so happens, when you mass produce something, you are bound to have issues at times. That's why they have warranties, just like every other manufacturer of goods out there. Do you have any idea of what it goes in to designing, engineering and building a car? You can PPap your suppliers to death, once in a while an issue is going to pop up. You cannot tell me that GM isn'g going back to the supplier with this and putting them on notice. I work in this industry and when one of my suppliers screws up, they have hell to pay, I can assure you TRW will have their ass in a ringer, even for this 0.00000001% of vehicles.
tekd 12:04AM (10/11/2008)
Picasso, every single manufacturer of everything on this planet oursources stuff. Dell laptops aren't built by Dell, they're built by a Chinese laptop company. And the motherboards in those laptops aren't built by that company, they're built by a motherboard company. And that company doesn't make the capacitors or resistors themselves, they buy those parts from the capacitor manufacturers in Taiwan and Japan. And they buy the screens from the screen panel manufacturer's in China/Japan/Korea.
But when your Dell laptop breaks you still blame Dell for having tight control over it's QC and knowing what's going into their computers. Otherwise everyone can play the supplier blame game until you're blaming the workers who mined the metal used in the computer.
There aren't many things out there that don't use outsourced parts (even if it's just the screws), but at the end of the day you have to make sure you bought decent lumber if you're building a house. You don't just randomly build a house with termite infested lumber then blame your supplier.
tekd 12:07AM (10/11/2008)
By the way, who do you think consumers are going to blame if their airbags fling shrapnel into their face? The supplier? Come on. This kind of stuff makes GM look bad, nobody even knows who the supplier is. And if it can make you look bad you need to make sure it doesn't happen, because people are going to associate problems with every single part of the car with your brand. They don't know who made the flaming windshield wiper fluid heater, they don't know who made the defective airbags, they just know GM made the cars.
So even if you want to defend GM, you're not doing them any favors by blaming the suppliers because even if it's the suppliers' fault this kind of crap scares away customers.
Dave 6:11PM (10/10/2008)
Good ol' TRW...
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tankd0g 6:16PM (10/10/2008)
I assume this was another "supplier issue" (aren't they always). I would love to know how they became aware of this problem and how they narrowed it down to 79 units.
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chris 8:19PM (10/10/2008)
Is that a 2009 model year car? Wow...
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Big Rocket 8:39PM (10/10/2008)
@ Picasso and Realitycheck:
If the average Joe is dissatisfied with faulty equipment in a car, he is not going to bother and find out the subcontractor at fault. Most likely, he's just going to avoid buying from the same car company again. As a result, it is the responsibility of every car manufacturer to select its suppliers carefully, with an emphasis on quality rather than cost-cutting.
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