• Some owners of Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC full-size SUVs are unhappy with their paint
  • Peeling and flaking issues with the luxury sport-utes has led to a California class-action

A quartet of owners holding keys to late-model SUVs made by General Motors have filed a class-action lawsuit against the automotive behemoth, alleging defective processes led to a host of problems with the paint on their vehicles.

Brought to the United States district court for the central district of California by an Alabama-based legal firm representing four people from the Golden State, plaintiffs state the paint on affected vehicles is prone to defects. The suit alleges GM knew about the problem, but continued with the faulty paint processes, a decision which they say has left some owners with hefty repair bills.

A laundry list of SUVs from General Motors are identified in the suit, mostly big sellers like the Chevrolet Tahoe and its cousins from the 2015 to 2020 model years. By “cousins” we mean the GMC and Cadillac versions of the Tahoe, the Yukon and Escalade, plus their long-wheelbase variants, the Chevrolet Suburban and GMC Yukon XL. Complaints include the peeling, cracking, delaminating, and clouding of paint on these truck-based rigs.

Alleged up front in the suit is the assertion GM knew the score but chose to do nothing. “Although the defect manifested over time,” reads the complaint, “Defendant knew or should have known of those issues prior to sale of the Class Vehicles; yet Defendant continued to put the latently defective Class Vehicles on the market.” The suit goes on to say the plaintiffs believe General Motors also “actively concealed” the issues.

GM Paint Class Action 1
Example given in class-action suit of alleged paint failure on newer GM sport-utility vehiclesPhoto by ClassAction.com

Reading through the suit, it seems the four people bringing this class-action into life are a mix of folks – one of whom has been buying these SUVs for about 25 years – who either bought their vehicles brand-new or picked one up off a used car lot. Repair costs are suggested in the suit to regularly cost upwards of five figures.

The law firm representing plaintiffs is seeking to represent anyone who leased or purchased an impacted SUV in the state of California.

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