NHTSA investigating GM gearbox issues

Jeff Sabatini — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:01:00 EST

The New York Times reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has broadened its investigation into faulty transmissions used in the Saturn Aura. A total of nearly 89,000 vehicles are now being looked at, including 2007-2008 Auras and 2008 Saturn Aura Green Line hybrid models. Before the investigation's expansion, about 44,000 units from the 2007 model year were under scrutiny. Multiple crash incidents have been reported, and General Motors apparently says the problem is limited to four-speed automatic transmissions.

According to NHTSA, affected vehicles may not shift correctly, creating a mismatch between the gear selected and the shift lever. For instance, the transmission may stay in Drive, even when the gear lever is moved to the Park or Reverse position. This can lead to some potentially dangerous situations where a vehicle can roll or power away from an unsuspecting driver. The problem seems to be caused by deterioration of the shift cable jacket, which can even lead to a complete loss of shifting.

NHTSA investigating GM gearbox issues originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Doh! Battery leakage hurts GM hybrid production

Jeremy Korzeniewski — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:28:00 EST

Filed under: Hybrid, Green, Plants/Manufacturing, Recalls, Chevrolet, GM, Saturn

As much as General Motors would like to sell more hybrids, we'd imagine it would be pretty tough to do so without having the batteries on hand. It turns out that since December of last year, GM has had to recall some nine-thousand battery packs produced by its supplier, Cobasys, which were due for installation in mild hybrid versions of the Chevrolet Malibu, Saturn Vue and Saturn Aura. The culprit was reportedly an internal leak in the pack which caused the entire unit to be inoperable. This setback hurts even more in the face of record gasoline prices and the resultant record sales of hybrid vehicles.

Chevrolet plans to begin production of the 2009 Malibu hybrid on June 23. Cobasys says that it has resolved the leaky battery problem and that current units are shipping without defects. Unfortunately, some damage has already been done, especially for the Saturn brand, as sales of the hybrid version of the Vue have gone down from 2,683 units by this time last year to just 326 units thus far this year to go along with just 69 retail sales of the Aura hybrid.

[Source: Detroit News]

Doh! Battery leakage hurts GM hybrid production originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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