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Non-Tech : Kirk's Market Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jerome who wrote (868)	3/14/2014 11:04:43 AM
From: robert b furman	Respond to of 26612

The only time I've seen a product safety campaign hurt a manufacturer was: Audi when they refused to acknowledge their cars popped into reverse. Ford when they told explorer owners to lower the tire pressure in an effort to stop it from being top heavy and rolling over on hard turns. The lower tire pressure killed a lot of people who didn't check their tire pressure and ran them underinflated.Here in the south the roads get very hot and tire delamination really did happen regularly. I know a women here in the Woodlands whose husband was killed by that exact event - Ford paid her several million. Toyota and the unintended acceleration problem. The use of having NASA study the problem was unbiased and brilliant. There is a reasonable argument for GM's defense. The ignition switch would swing to off when a heavy weight of keys or other objects were attached to the vehicles key fob. It was not GM that modified the supplied key and key fob, it was the customer that modified the key fob with attachments. Everybody loves bashing GM - but this argument was not aggressively taken and the delay vs the virtue of the condition is now more in focus. I'm sure there will now be a label put on all key fobs in the future (Do not attach objects to this key fob or key). When a campaign is the result of a customer modification,it is hard for the NHTSB to take the claim to court - the real reason the issue lingered, is it was not defensible. GM will PR its way into action and give any customer involved a $500.00 rebate. This was the same course taken with the pickups side gas tanks that were fabricated by a news station - those involved got a 1000 rebate towards the purchase of a GM truck. . Poor engineering and refusal to accept it hurts - the rest is not good, but nebulous to see much damage Bob