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Ready to ignite?
Is the Government protecting GM?
Is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration competent? Are they fully capable of doing their job?
Just a few months ago, according to many in Congress, the answer to that question was no, at least as far as it concerned Toyota.
When Democrats – completely ironically I’m sure – from Michigan, and intricately connected to the Big 3, were doing everything possible to create the impression that Toyota was most the dangerous and incompetent automaker on the road, despite decades of contradictory data, the NHTSA was made out to be a patsy.
And it worked perfectly. Toyota sales declined and GM sales increased, but I’m sure that that was just a coincidence, right?
Or, might it actually be Congress that is incompetent, or even worse, complicit in protecting GM from the same onslaught of safety criticism to protect itself?
In recent weeks, GM has recalled nearly 1.4 million vehicles for a fire hazard that the company completely blames on a third party company, which was forced into bankruptcy after a similar 800,000 vehicle recall in 2008.
Yet, according to the bankrupt supplier, since that 2008 recall, the same fire hazard has occurred in GM vehicles without the third party equipment, prompting the company to warn the NTHSA that it “was being misled by the automaker and was missing a dangerous safety problem because of the possibility of fires when the vehicles were unattended,” .
GM denied the allegations and the NTHSA bought their denial, it seems, without any further investigation.
A patsy again?
Still, what did GM know and when did they know it? If GM fully comprehended this problem back in August of 2008, why did it take until June 2010 for GM to fully expand the recall?
According to M-Heat Investors, the company which bought the assets of the bankrupt Micro-Heat, GM has a flawed electrical system.
Hmmmm. Isn’t that what Johnny Dingell has been accusing Toyota of hiding, yet his beloved GM, especially with its $40+ billion worth of tax payer cash, could never experience a flawed electrical system, right?
Of course, if this issue is, and has been, so well understood and so easy to resolve, yet dangerous enough to burn down a house, why has it taken GM so long resolve? Isn’t that exactly the same kind of denial and foot-dragging that Dingell et al lambasted Toyota for practicing?
While Micro-Heat might be fully at fault, it’s not hard to imagine what would have happened to GM’s first quarter profits – not to mention GM’s IPO possibilities – if its safety had been called into question as has Toyota’s.
Nevertheless, even if Micro-Heat is fully at fault, why has it taken GM so long to resolve this problem, and why doesn’t either the NTHSA or Congress care this time around?
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