DETROIT - General Motors Co is recalling 1.3 million compact cars in North America to address a power steering problem that has been linked to 14 crashes and one injury, the company said on Tuesday.

U.S. safety regulators opened an investigation on Jan. 27 into approximately 905,000 Cobalt models in the United States after receiving more than 1,100 complaints of power steering failures.

The recall covers the 2005-2010 model year Chevrolet Cobalt and 2007-2010 Pontiac G5 in the United States; 2005-2006 Pontiac Pursuit sold in Canada, and the 2005-2006 Pontiac G4 sold in Mexico, GM said in a statement.

GM said it told the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about the voluntary recall on Monday after concluding its own investigation that began in 2009.

GM said the affected vehicle can be still be “safely controlled” but it may require greater steering effort under 15 mph. Drivers will see a warning light and hear a chime if the power steering fails.

“After our in-depth investigation, we found that this is a condition that takes time to develop. It tends to occur in older models out of warranty,” GM Vice President of Quality Jamie Hresko said in the statement.

“Recalling these vehicles is the right thing to do for our customers’ peace of mind,” he said.

GM said it is currently developing a remedy to fix the problem and will notify customers when the plan is finalized.

GM spokesman Alan Adler said Monday it will take time for the automaker to get 1.3 million new power steering motors from the supplier, JTEKT Corp., and GM will notify car owners when the parts are available.

Heightened scrutiny after Toyota recalls
The recall comes at a time of heightened public and regulatory scrutiny over vehicle safety issues in the wake of massive recalls by Toyota Motor Corp.

Toyota global quality control chief Shinichi Sasaki and North American President Yoshimi Inaba are scheduled to appear before a Senate committee on Tuesday for a third hearing on its handling of consumer complaints about sudden acceleration

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): NYTIMES

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Nissan is recalling 540,000 vehicles worldwide to fix faulty brake pedal pins and inaccurate fuel gauges.

The Japanese automaker’s North American division said no accidents or injuries have been reported, but the company is initiating the recalls based on three reports of brake pedal pins partially disengaging, hindering braking ability.

A separate, unrelated fuel-gauge issue can lead to inaccurate fuel readings in certain trucks and minivans. The gauge may show gas left when the tank is actually empty.

The brake pedal pin recall affects 2008, 2009 and 2010 Nissan Titan, Armada, Quest and Infiniti QX56 models — about 179,000 of which are in the United States. Owners of these vehicles should bring their their vehicles to a Nissan or Infiniti dealership for a visual inspection, the company said. Repairs will be made as necessary.

The fuel gauge recall affects 419,000 U.S. vehicles, including 2005 through 2008 Nissan Titan, Armada and Infiniti QX56 models, as well as Nissan Frontiers, Pathfinders and Xterras produced between January and March 2006 and between October 2007 and January 2008.

Nissan said it will notify owners affected by the fuel gauge recall as to when they should bring their vehicles into a local dealership for repair. In the meantime, the company encourages customers to keep their tanks at least half-full until their vehicle is inspected.

All vehicles currently on sale are free of the two problems, Nissan said.

“We regret any inconveniences that our customers may experience as we take these precautions,” Nissan North America spokesman Kevin Martin said in a statement released Tuesday.

Nissan is the latest automaker to hop on the recall bandwagon.

General Motors earlier on Tuesday announced a recall of 1.3 million Chevrolet and Pontiac models for power steering failures. Honda recalled 952,118 vehicles for problematic airbags in February. And Toyota has recalled millions of vehicles since January for problems related to sudden acceleration, which have been blamed for several accidents resulting in injuries and fatalities.

The bad news comes on the same day reports showed Nissan topped Asian automakers in year-over-year sales increases.

Nissan February sales surged 29% from last year, compared with a 13% increase for Honda and an 11% increase for Hyundai. Recall-plagued Toyota sold 8.7% fewer vehicles than it did a year ago.

Source (article): CNN.COM

Source (picture): LINCAH.COM

DETROIT — General Motors said on Wednesday that it would shut down Hummer, the brand of big sport utility vehicles that became synonymous with the term gas guzzler, after a deal to sell it to a Chinese manufacturer fell apart.

The buyer, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines, said in a statement that it had withdrawn its bid because it was unable to receive approval from the Chinese government, which was trying to put a new emphasis on limiting China’s dependence on imported oil and protecting the environment.

Tight financial markets also hurt the deal. When the commerce ministry did not bless the transaction, the well-capitalized Chinese banks became reluctant to lend money to Tengzhong, even though it tried to set up an overseas subsidiary to buy Hummer. That left Tengzhong trying to borrow money from Western banks that have been curtailing their lending even to established borrowers, much less a little-known company from western China.

A spokesman for Hummer, Nick Richards, said G.M. had no specific timetable for completing its wind-down, but left open the possibility that G.M. would be open to new bids.

“We just reached this decision today, so we’re just beginning the process,” Mr. Richards said. “Typically, winding down a brand can take several months. If there are viable alternatives for part of the brand or all of the brand during the process, we’ll consider them.”

G.M. had been trying to sell Hummer for nearly two years, and struck a preliminary deal with Tengzhong in June. The two companies had planned to complete the $150 million deal by the end of January, then delayed the deadline by a month in the hopes of receiving approval from China.

“We have since considered a number of possibilities for Hummer along the way, and we are disappointed that the deal with Tengzhong could not be completed,” John Smith, G.M.’s vice president for corporate planning and alliances, said in a statement. “G.M. will now work closely with Hummer employees, dealers and suppliers to wind down the business in an orderly and responsible manner.”

Over the years, Hummer shifted from a brawny status symbol that drew attention on the road into an automotive pariah. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California helped the brand become popular and once owned a fleet of Hummers, but more recently, he described the brand as prime evidence of the Detroit automakers’ failings.

Still, dealers and fans were optimistic that Hummer could live on.

They expected to see smaller, more fuel-efficient models introduced under Tengzhong that would help the brand “get away from people just thinking it was a big gas hog,” said Danny Hill, the general sales manager at Classic Hummer in Grapevine, Tex.

“It is a great, great vehicle that really does anything you want it to do,” Mr. Hill said. “It had a great concept to it. It’s a real shame that it’s going away, because the people who own Hummers, they just love them.”

It was the third time since G.M. emerged from bankruptcy protection last year that a deal to sell one of its unwanted brands collapsed. The company is shutting down Saturn, and it began to halt operations at Saab after a deal with Koenigsegg in Sweden was called off. G.M. later reached an agreement with a Dutch company, Spyker Cars; that deal was completed on Tuesday.

G.M. is also closing Pontiac, but it never tried to sell that brand. The carmaker is focusing on its Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC brands as it works to recover from bankruptcy.

G.M. said it would honor Hummer warranties and provide service and parts to Hummer owners worldwide. Hummer has nearly 400 dealerships globally, including 153 in the United States.

The announcement was celebrated by environmentalists, who have long pressed G.M. simply to kill the brand, which was born from military Humvees in 1992. G.M. acquired it in 1999.

“Closing Hummer simultaneously improves the health of G.M., China and the planet,” said Daniel Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign at the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. “Hummer should rest in pieces.”

About 3,000 jobs in the United States could be affected by the shutdown, including positions at G.M. and dealerships. A factory in Shreveport, La., that builds the Hummer H3 and H3T, as well as other G.M. trucks, already was scheduled to close by 2012.

The larger H2 was built for G.M. by A. M. General in Mishawaka, Ind., until December, when production was temporarily halted to allow the sale process to conclude.

Mr. Richards said Hummer dealers in the United States had about 2,500 vehicles in their inventories. In January, the brand sold just 265 units in the country. Hummer sales plunged 67 percent in 2009, to a total of 9,046.

The deal would have made Tengzhong the first Chinese company to sell vehicles in North America, though it planned to keep Hummer’s operations in the United States.

“Tengzhong worked earnestly to achieve an acquisition that it believed to be a tremendous opportunity to acquire a global brand at an attractive price,” Tengzhong said in its statement.

Its bid for Hummer was an audacious move, particularly by Chinese standards. The company is privately held, so it did not have the connections that many government-owned enterprises enjoy; by contrast, government agencies own part or all of China’s 10 largest automakers.

Tengzhong concluded the initial deal with G.M. in June and was supposed to close the deal by September. Some in Detroit were furious that the Chinese review process then dragged on for eight months, during which the American auto industry showed few signs of recovery and the potential value of Hummer continued to decline.

The timing of Tengzhong’s bid was bad from the beginning. High oil prices in the summer of 2008 led to a broad move by the Chinese government to improve energy efficiency and limit oil imports.