- According to recent legal action, some popular GM models too often show transmission errors
- The alleged issue can arise whist trying to select ‘Park’, and keeps owners from turning off the vehicle
- Two class-action lawsuits tied to the apparent problem have been filed in the U.S.
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It seems some owners of certain General Motors products may experience difficulty placing their vehicles in Park, to the point where a persistent “Shift to Park” warning illuminates on the dashboard like an eternal flame to the RenCen. A lawsuit has recently been brought against the company, alleging GM knows the score but has refused to issue a fix.
One suit is pending in federal court in Memphis, with a trial set to start mid-January. It outlines how the problem causes the vehicles to: not recognize when they are placed in Park; display the message noted above when owners attempt to turn off the ignition, and; prevent the vehicles from shutting off correctly. This specific litigation centres on 2017 and 2018 GMC Acadia crossover vehicles, though there are rafts of other GM cars which appear to have the same shifter design and similar problems.
Sure enough, a separate class-action lawsuit has been filed to include other machines from the corporation. Specifically, it points to the aforementioned Acadia, but expands the range to cast a net over models ranging from the Chevrolet Blazer and Traverse; to the Volt and Malibu.
There is no shortage of online chatter about the problem, including numerous YouTube tutorials pointing to its root and outlining potential fixes. According to one video, most of the issue can be traced back to a poor contact on a switch that is activated by pressing a button on the car’s gear selector. That same person alleges one of GM’s recommended “fixes” for this issue is to flick that selector button multiple times in rapid-fire succession to clean the switch contacts. Okay, then.
Students of automotive history (yes, we exist) will recall the brouhaha in which Ford found itself over 40 years ago when the so-called ‘parking pawl’ on millions of automatic-equipped Blue Oval products produced from 1966 to 1980 tended to prematurely fail and permit a parked vehicle to roll away.
Recalling an estimated 23 million vehicles would have caused financial obliteration, so pencil-necked lawyers at Ford managed to convince safety wonks that sending a sticker to all owners of affected cars, one which essentially just told people to jam their cars into Park real good, would suffice. Don’t expect the same result in this case.
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