I guess John Oliver won't be getting a free GM car then

There seems to be a mistake in the title. I would've accepted "John Oliver Leaves GM Dismembered in Satans Molten Rectum."

*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Monday, May 19th, 2014 7:08pm PDT - promote requested by JiggaJonson.

lol : )

Tags for this video have been changed from 'John Oliver Leaves GM Dismembered in Satans Molten Rectum' to 'John Oliver, GM, Last Week Tonight' - edited by eric3579

I feel like they blew it, they should have charged them $35 million per infraction, both per model they delayed recalling and per death caused, which would be 13-35 deaths and I'm thinking about 15 models...which would be closer to a $ 1-1.5 billion fine. That would be a real fine.
Won't be buying a GM car any time soon.
*related
http://videosift.com/video/South-Park-S14E11-Clip-Coon-2-Hindsight-We-re-Sorry-BP

*nsfw for boobage.

Invocations (nsfw) cannot be called by SpaceGirlSpiff because SpaceGirlSpiff is not privileged - sorry.

Why walk through the valley of the shadow of death when you can drive?

On the other hand, apparently the US Government lost $11.2 billion on bailing out GM. They *spent* 50 billion bailing them out, the 11.2 billion is just how much dried up and blew away entirely.

Maybe if we'd have just let some of those corporate juggernauts fail, as should happen in a REAL free market, we'd actually have seen more progress. I'm thinking of, say, Tesla -- that got a $465 million loan from the gov. and paid it off in full 9 years early.

Not so long ago -- within my lifespan -- the government actually *broke up* giant corporate monopolies like Bell telecom. Now we can't throw money at them fast enough. I guess lobbying "works".

I agree, the whole bailout thing was un-American. Thanks W for starting the processes with the airlines and Wall street. At least we got something back with the auto bailouts, but we still artificially kept the near monopoly going strong when it should have failed and split into numerous smaller companies, and paid through the nose to do it.
I also wish we still broke monopolies instead of giving them MORE artificial advantages. It is disgusting how much of our government has whored itself out to the highest bidder.

For anyone that hasn't followed what this is about...

For the problems itemized in this video.
Loss of :
- power brake assist
- airbags
- power steering.

This affair was actually about 1 specific issue :
The detent in the key socket rotator was not as strong as it should have been.

What that specifically meant was that :
IF you had a large heavy keychain on your key, and you jerked it, or knocked it such that it swings hard, the keychain could pull on the key hard enough to turn the key to the OFF position.

So when the car would turn off, you'd lose the power brakes, power steering, and airbags would be inactive.

Under "normal" circumstances, this wasn't a problem.
But for the folks with a christmas tree hanging off of their key, it was a chance to turn off their car while driving.

(side note : Crying about the power steering and power brakes really misses the big issue : The steering lock can kick in while moving... which apparently no one gave enough of a crap about to think for the 2 seconds it takes to notice that elephant in the room)



In this case, the contention over whether or not the core problem with the key socket was negligence boils down to semantics.

Car companies buy their parts from sub contractors.
They spec out the parts, and sub contractors manufacture the parts 'to spec'.

The spec isn't a 'hard' requirement.
If you say "5 Newtons of force", that doesn't mean that 4.999999999999123 Newtons is unacceptable.

Actually, it's standard for ~all parts to not be exactly the spec. They just have to be 'close enough to work right'.

And for that matter, many of the numbers in various specs are 'off the cuff' values that are 'generally known to work fine'. Getting hung up on a specific number isn't salient - what matters is 'does it work right?'.

So the question becomes, what is "good enough to work right?".
In practice, that ends up being a judgment call. Often made by engineers that try out the parts.


Here's where congress and GM differed.

Congress said : The ignition socket wasn't 100% exactly what GM had in the spec that they sent to the subcontractors, so it was wrong from day 1, and they knew it wasn't 100% the spec since pre-production. Hence, GM was negligent.

GM said : Of course it wasn't 100% exactly the spec. That was to be expected. At the time, we had no indication that the actual provided part was so far out of spec that it would not work right.


My personal take :
If this was something as simple as 'actual malfunctions/breakages of parts', then it would be black and white.
But in these cases, nothing was actually broken or malfunctioning.
So you had to rely on statistics and analysis to identify the issue.
Statistics require data, data requires evidence, evidence requires time to collect.
Seeing as how the vast majority of cars had no problem, this isn't the kind of thing that just leaps out at you.

Since any given car, when made in massive quantities, will have all kinds of multiple complaints about multiple systems, you can't just go back and point at incident(s) X and Y and say that it was the smoking gun - because if it was, then you'd have a pile of smoking guns for every other part out there.
Every instance of every part has a small chance of going bad, and with enough cars, you'll have a lot of 'item A went bad' reports to sift through.
You can't jump to the conclusion after the first couple reports that the part is improper, and it's unrealistic to expect anyone to immediately make that conclusion.
In order to make an informed determination, you simply need a pattern to emerge.

(I listened to the CSPAN coverage of the hearings while driving.)

-scheherazade

Good analysis on the main technical fault. Though Oliver mentions brake pads overheating and catching fire? I assume that's another issue/recall as well.

And the whole "threatening to sue victims' families" while they had already collected reams of data - I'd argue enough to know that they're in the wrong - is a nasty move to put it lightly.

Actually, this is true, but it's also only one of the recall items that GM has issued Recalls for this year.

"It recalled 8,208 of its 2014 cars on May 7, for example, because they might have rear brakes on the front wheels."

"GM says it has informed regulators about two more recalls imminent but not yet announced. The latest batch includes safety belt, air bag, transmission and electrical issues in a range of midsize sedans, full-size crossovers and SUVs, and pickups."


GM's U.S. recalls this year

Below are General Motors' recall of vehicles in the U.S. since Jan. 1

Date, no. of U.S. vehicles, models affected, recall defect

- Jan. 13: 324,970 of the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado and 2014 GMC Sierra for overheated exhaust parts

- Feb. 7 and 25: 1,367,146 of the 2005-07 Chevrolet Cobalt, 2006-07 Chevrolet HHR, 2005-07 Pontiac G5, 2006-07 Pontiac Solstice, 2003-07 Saturn ION, 2007 Saturn Sky, 2007 Opel GT, 2007 Daewoo G2X for ignition switch

- Feb 20: 355 of the 2014 Buick Enclave, LaCrosse, Regal and Verano; 2014 Chevrolet Cruze, Impala, Malibu and Travers; 2014 GMC Acadia for transmission shift cable adjuster

- March 17: 63,903 of the 2013-14 Cadillac XTS for brake vacuum booster

- March 17: 303,013 of the 2009 Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana for airbag

- March 17: 1,178,407 of the 2008-13 Buick Enclave, 2008-13 Chevrolet Traverse, 2008-13 GMC Acadia, 2008-10 Saturn Outlook for airbag

- March 17: 656 of the Cadillac ELR for electronic brake control

- March 28: 823,788 of the 2008-11 Chevrolet HHR, 2008-10 Chevrolet Cobalt, 2008-10 Pontiac G5, 2008-10 Pontiac Solstice, 2008-10 Saturn Sky, 2008-10 Opel GT, 2008-09 Daewoo G2X for ignition switch

- March 28: 174,046 of the 2013-14 Chevrolet Cruze for front axle shaft

- March 28: 489, 936 of the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado, 2014 GMC Sierra, 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, 2014 GMC Yukon and Yukon XL for oil cooler fitting.

- March 31: 1,340,447 of the 2004-06 Chevrolet Malibu and Malibu Maxx, 2004-06 Pontiac G6, 2004-07 Saturn Ion, 2008-09 Chevrolet Malibu, 2008-09 Pontiac G6, 2008-09 Saturn Aura, 2010 Cobalt, 2009-10 Chevrolet HHR for electric power steering

- April 9: 2,191,014 of the 2005-10 Chevrolet Cobalt, 2006-11 Chevrolet HHR, 2007-10 Pontiac G5, 2006-10 Pontiac Solstice, 2003-07 Saturn ION, 2007-10 Saturn Sky for ignition key cylinder

- April 24: 50,571 of the 2013 Cadillac SRX for acceleration lag

- April 19: 23,249 of the 2009-10 Pontiac Vibe (built by Toyota) for air bags

- April 24: 51 of the 2015 Chevrolet Silverado HD and 2014 GMC Sierra HD for diesel transfer pump

- April 29: 51,640 of the 2014 Chevrolet Traverse, 2014 GMC Acadia and 2014 Buick Enclave for inaccurate fuel gauge

- April 29: 56,214 of the 2007-08 Saturn Aura for shift cable

- May 7: 8,208 of the 2014 Chevrolet Malibu and 2104 Buick Lacrosse for brake rotors

- May 14: 111,889 of the 2005-07 Corvette for headlight low beams

- May 14: 19,225 of the 2014 Cadillac CTS for windshield wipers

- May 14: 140,067 of the 2014 Malibu for brake boost

- May 14: 2,440,524 of the 2004-12 Chevrolet Malibu, 2004-07 Malibu Maxx, 2005-10 Pontiac G6 and 2007-10 Saturn Aura for brake lamps

- May 14: 477 of the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado and 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe for steering tie-rod

- May 16: 1,402 of the 2015 Cadillac Escalade for passenger air bag

- May 19: 1,339,355 of the 2009-10 Saturn Outlook, 2009-14 Chevrolet Traverse, 2009-14 GMC Acadia and 2009-14 Buick Enclave for front seat belts

- May 19: 58 of the 2015 Chevrolet Silverado HD and 2015 GMC Sierra HD for loose fuse block

- May 19: 1,075,102 of the 2004-08 Chevrolet Malibu and 2005-08 Pontiac G6 for shift cable (expands April 29 Saturn Aura recall)

Total 18,666,842
( http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/05/20/gm-recalls-fine-goverment/9329481/ )

*controversy

Adding video to channels (Controversy) - requested by MrFisk.