General Motors will recall more than 1 million pickups and sport utility vehicles due to problems with power-assisted steering in a number of crashes, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday.
The affected vehicles — all manufactured in 2015 — include 450,711 Chevrolet Silverados; 45,270 Cadillac Escalades; 186,083 GMC Sierra 1500 pickups and 145,198 Chevy Tahoes, according to a GM report. The traffic safety agency said power steering on the cars has temporarily failed before restarting, making them more difficult to control; the malfunction has been cited in 30 crashes but no fatalities.
GM began investigating the claims in June 2018, finding that low-speed turns and other high-current events can result in “temporary low-voltage conditions” which can disable the power-assisted steering until voltage increases, the company wrote. GM said the car’s information center can alert the driver to problems and noted the malfunction can also shut down the radio, air conditioning and cruise control.
The recall may expand to other models as the company investigates the scope of the issue, said Kaitlin Wowak, assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame. In 2017, the Detroit-based carmaker recalled nearly 700,000 Silverado and Sierra pickups manufactured in 2014 for the same issue with power-assisted steering.
“It would have been in the best interest of consumers for GM to issue one large recall last year that included all models that were impacted by this problem,” Wowak said. “However, any type of auto recall, either for software issues or mechanical parts, can be extremely expensive so companies typically want to wait to issue a recall until they are certain there is a problem with a particular model.”
GM’s stock was down slightly in New York trading.
