General Motors issues stop deliver for 2,800 corvettes over defects in 2015 model

General Motors has been forced to recall nearly 3,000 Chevrolet Corvettes, after the giant US car manufacturer said that the vehicles may have air bag defects or brake faults. According to Auto News, around 2,000 corvettes are said to have serious problems with the driver's air bags that could come loose from their steering …

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd never get that kind of problem with a Toyota

Then again, perhaps you might, though for some reason you wouldn't yet have seen a Register article about the following...

Toyota customers have already had problems that should never happened, and EE Times (that's Electronic Engineering Times, for any non-engineers reading) has a collection of interesting writeups (and comments) prompted by evidence revealed in the court case(s) following the incidents.

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319903

(and http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319936 also well worth a look, and various others)

Toyota Case: Single Bit Flip That Killed

Junko Yoshida

10/25/2013 03:35 PM EDT

104 comments

MADISON, Wis. — Could bad code kill a person? It could, and it apparently did.

The Bookout v Toyota Motor Corp. case, which blamed sudden acceleration in a Toyota Camry for a wrongful death, touches the issue directly.

This case -- one of several hundred contending that Toyota's vehicles inadvertently accelerated -- was the first in which a jury heard the plaintiffs' attorneys supporting their argument with extensive testimony from embedded systems experts. That testimony focused on Toyota's electronic throttle control system -- specifically, its source code.

The plaintiffs' attorneys closed their argument by saying that the electronics throttle control system caused the sudden acceleration of a 2005 Camry in a September 2007 accident that killed one woman and seriously injured another on an Oklahoma highway off-ramp. It wasn't loose floor mats, a sticky pedal, or driver error.

[continues]

[LarsG]

Re: You'd never get that kind of problem with a Toyota

Really?

If I recall correctly they have had a number of recalls, something to do with the brrrraaaaaaaaakessssss!

[MarkGates]

Re: You'd never get that kind of problem with a Toyota

"though for some reason you wouldn't yet have seen a Register article about the following..."

Maybe now they don't need to.

[Hud Dunlap]

Re: You'd never get that kind of problem with a Toyota @ AC you a are wrong

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2014/02/12/toyota_prius_recall_software_glitch/#c_2105507

So you see the Register does have articles about Toyota problems. Maybe not the one you are talking about but they only have so much space on a page and they have to decide how to use it. I didn't bother searching back to 2013 to see if they covered it. Maybe you should do so

[tfewster]

Re: You'd never get that kind of problem with a Toyota @ AC you a are wrong

El Reg diligently reports all ROTM sightings.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You'd never get that kind of problem with a Toyota @ AC you a are wrong

"I didn't bother searching back to 2013 to see if they covered it. Maybe you should do so"

I used one of those search engine things, and El Reg's own search/

No hits. Unlike Toyota. Thanks for the suggestion though.

[Outcast]

Brakes ?

They'll only slow ya down !

[Pen-y-gors]

2015 model?

Is some sort of time machine in use here? Or are we just slipping into that strange time zone where the 'September edition' of Good Food magazine comes out in late July, and Euro 2016 footie matches take place in 2014.

Please bring back the old calendar!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 2015 model?

This has been motor industry practice for years, and reflects annual product cycles with mid-year launches. The "new" models (often just a trim change) are announced during the year at various motors shows. If labelled according to year of launch, then in the following spring the (often) talent free retards that sell cars are going to have a VERY hard time selling a 2014 model in spring 2015.

Label the car as the "model year", which is the calendar year after launch, and hey presto! this problem goes away. In the industry everybody knows what "model year" means, punters buy with confidence that they're not buying old stock, and everybody's happy. And for the canny buyer, this creates opportunities to buy at a discount from residual stock when new models are announced. Who's got a problem with all that?

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

Re: 2015 model?

In the UK at least the date related registration plates were set to begin/end at certain times to try and spread out new car deliveries. Works in tandem with new model years.

[AndrueC]

Maybe they shouldn't have released the 2015 range so early?

Honda did the same thing- they released the 2012 Jazz in 2011. At least they seemed to get it right though.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with GM is how much they cut corners. They cut corners on the most idiotic places. As a former GM customer, I have firsthand experience with this. The "new" GM operates just like the "old" GM did.

[Aoyagi Aichou]

Well, the Cadillacs (STS and 2008 CTS) seem OK. I mean, I haven't heard of any notable issues with them, unlike the newer ones or the older ones.

[werdsmith]

No, the old GM would have shipped all these cars out to dealers and let the dealers argue with the customers about warranty.

[cosymart]

Time Warp

Bit like Garmin issuing their map version 2015.10 in spring 2014. Confusion or what!

[Michael Hoffmann]

Airbags?

With Corvettes and their drivers, aren't "airbags" generally part of the... uhm, "removable accessory" in the passenger seat?

[Christian Berger]

Well quality in that area is rather bad

After all you have people developing with insane methodologies like the V or W model, plus outsourcing to the lowest bidder or people who care even less about the project than you do.

It's not uncommon for conceptual bugs to go all the way down to implementation, because nobody in the chain had the guts to report that bug. This is why certain German cars have bugs in their targeting systems causing the brakes to malfunction and stop you car when you target someone.

[MJI]

GM are slowly dying

They are slowly getting rid of the interesting parts of the business, the big European cars are dead. Now Holdens is going, not much interesting left.

[AndrueC]

Re: GM are slowly dying

They are slowly getting rid of the interesting parts of the business, the big European cars are dead. Now Holdens is going, not much interesting left.

I don't want an 'interesting' car. I want a car that gets me from A to B safely in reasonable comfort while consuming as little fuel as possible.

[MJI]

Re: GM are slowly dying

Quite a few people already make cars for you.Why cannot manufacturers make cars for me?