Airbag Failures Lead to Class Action Lawsuit Against GM Canada
A class action lawsuit against General Motors of Canada has been filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia by Garcha & Company on behalf of William Arthur Baldridge, who purchased a Chevrolet Silverado 2500 in April 2005.
The class action, which includes all consumers in Canada except the Province of Quebec, alleges multiple vehicles are equipped with defective airbag control units that cause failures of the airbags and seat belt pretensioners.
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According to CarComplaints.com, the affected models span two decades and the list is quite long, including:
- 2007-2014 GMC Acadia
- 1998-2000, 2002-2009 GMC Envoy
- 1999-2014 GMC Yukon
- 2000-2014 GMC Yukon XL
- 2010-2014 GMC Terrain
- 2004-2014 Chevrolet Equinox
- 2008-2014 Chevrolet Traverse
- 2014-2015 Chevrolet Trax
- 1994-2014 Chevrolet Tahoe
- 2001-2009 Chevrolet Trailblazer
- 1999-2004 Chevrolet Tracker
- 1998-2014 Chevrolet Silverado
- 1999-2014 Chevrolet Suburban
- 1999-2005 Chevrolet Astro
- 2008-2014 Buick Enclave
- 2012-2014 Buick Encore
- 2004-2014 Buick Rainier
- 1998-2000, 2002-2014 Cadillac Escalade
- 2007-2014 Cadillac Escalade ESV
- 2009-2013 Cadillac Escalade Hybrid
- 2004-2014 Cadillac SRX
Various Isuzu models are listed in the class action, as well.
GM allegedly calibrated the airbag control unit to prevent deployment of the airbags and pretensioners 45 milliseconds after a crash has begun, even though the typical "crash duration" of a frontal vehicle-to-barrier collision is about 80-150 milliseconds and multiple impacts can occur in a single accident.
The lawsuit claims GM is aware of the dangers but continues to pretend the vehicles are safe. The automaker allegedly concealed the defects to avoid the cost of a recall.
An almost identical lawsuit against GM was filed in New Jersey last month, alleging affected vehicles do not deploy the airbags in a timely manner in the event of a crash. The U.S. federal government is said to have received more than 800 complaints of airbag failures in front-end crashes involving GM vehicles dating back to 1999.