General Motors CEO Mary Barra delivered on her promise to keep the recalls coming as the beleaguered automaker announced yet another round of callbacks Friday afternoon affecting nearly 400,000 vehicles.
The latest GM (GM) announcement came a day after Barra told NBC’s Matt Lauer to expect the Detroit company to add to its list of nearly 50 recalls so far this year, which already involve as many as 20.5 million vehicles. (While Barra was on TV, she even announced the recall of 33,000 Chevrolet Cruze vehicles due to potential airbag issues.)
The latest round of callbacks covers 392,459 full-size pickup trucks and SUVs in the U.S., as well as another 53,607 in Canada and 20,874 more in other countries. The vehicles affected are the 2014-2015 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, the 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, and the 2015 GMC Yukon and Yukon XL. GM said those vehicles may suffer from a defect that electronically switches the car into neutral, which could cut power from the wheels if the car is in motion at the time it occurs. The company said it is not aware of any crashes or injuries related to the issue.
Two smaller recalls affect 1,939 2014 Chevrolet Corvettes as well as 4,794 Chevrolet Caprice police cars and Chevrolet SS sport sedans (both from 2014). The latter relates to a potential defect in the cars’ wipers, while the Corvette recall relates to the vehicles’ shocks.
Barra has been called in front of Congress twice this year to answer questions about the company’s delayed recall of 2.6 million vehicles with faulty ignition switches. That defect resulted in at least 13 deaths over several years and revelations that GM engineers knew about the problem years before taking action. The company faces a barrage of lawsuits by customers and by families of crash victims. Meanwhile, the Transportation Department has levied GM with fines of $35 million.