Hello, I bought a 2005 Malibu from a local car dealer. The car had low miles and I thought it would be a safe and reliable car. So safe, that I allowed my teenage son to drive my car. While he was making a left hand turn from a 4-way stop, he heard a pop and then had no steering without any way to control the car he ended up in a field. I thank God he was not going fast, that there was no other cars or people involved, and he was not hurt. I had the car towed to my mechanic who is a certified master technician, who worked for Gm as a line tech for 25 yrs. He informs me that this should have never happened in a car that is only 4 yrs old, and felt it was defective. He said the failure occurred inside the steering rack causing the pinion to disengage resulting in loss of control. I then had the car towed to a GM dealer who’s mechanic said the same thing but because I did not buy the car from them, they would not help me….My next step was to contact Gm….they took a week to investigate…and decided that because I bought the car from a private car dealer, it had 86k miles on it and it was past the factory warranty they felt no need to do any thing about this. Not only was the steering rack and pinion damaged, the power steering unit under the dash and the air bag coils were damaged as well. The cost to repair this is over $2000.00. It’s not just the cost to repair the car that upsets me; it’s the fact that GM has no concern for safety. I logged on to a site to find some information http://www.nhtsa. dotgov/cars/problems/complain/index. cfm I found a long list for consumer complaints about Gm’s steering failures. “Unbelievable” And it’s not the only site that has complaints. Not only will you find the Malibu but you will also find many other GM made vehicles. There was a recall to address the steering defect in the Malibu. But they obviously decided it was of no big concern to fix the problem because the car is still unsafe. I’m not sure I would still trust the car even after the repairs are done. Because it is also stated on the website by many consumers that even after paying to have the rack and pinion replace and it still failed. The representative for Gm, Mr. Allen MacDonell, told me not to believe the comments made by consumers on the internet because it may be one person writing many complaints under different names. (I have a hard time believing that). I also asked how many complaints of this nature were reported. He could not give out that information for he was protecting the privacy of GM’s consumers’. I couldn’t understand how that question was invading anyone’s privacy; I don’t think I asked for a pacific names.
I thank God that my son was not injured or killed, I just wonder how many other loved ones were not so lucky as of a result of this and their families are not even aware of this defect in the steering column is why their love ones are gone…they were told that maybe they fell asleep, maybe they were distracted by the radio/ phone, or just told they don’t know why they lost control of the car…. I told Mr. Allen MacDonell at Gm I was going to tell everyone I know about the integrity of GM. I may be one little person and no big concern to a Big ‘Corporate like GM. But they say the best advertising you can have is word of mouth and I have a Big one……..I want to tell everyone to please think twice before you purchase a GM Vehicle…Your Loved one’s life may depend on it.
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