What Are Your Rights? General Motors Issues Recalls for Thousands of Vehicles Due to Brake Issue

Man: The following segment is sponsored by Martin, Harding & Mazzotti.

Interviewer: General Motors has issued recalls for more than 600,000 vehicles because of a brake issue. Now this includes popular pickup trucks and SUVs such as Silverado and Suburbans just to name a few. GM says there have been 113 reports of crashes and 13 injuries related to this issue. And here to help explain the reason why and what your rights are is Supervising Attorney Dan Dagostino from the law firm of Martin, Harding & Mazzotti. Dan, nice to see you back.

Dan: You as well. Thank you.

Interviewer: Thanks for being here. So, we’ll just jump right into it.

Dan: Sure.

Interviewer: Which vehicles are affected, and what exactly is this brake problem?

Dan: Absolutely, there’s a complete list if you go on GM’s website. But, you know, they have the Yukon, the Tahoe, the Sierra. What’s happening is, is when these vehicles are going over between 40 and 60 miles per hour there’s a software error. So, they are braking unintentionally, which can obviously be dangerous to whoever’s operating the vehicle.

Interviewer: Absolutely. So aside from rushing to your local dealership what else can our viewers be doing if they drive one of these impacted cars?

Dan: Sure, it’s a tricky situation. The error seems to be occurring when people are driving in four-wheel-drive mode. The only probably is now as you know the winter’s coming. You want your vehicle in four-wheel drive. So it really puts everyone in a predicament.

Interviewer: Okay. So does GM have a long term plan in place to resolve this problem?

Dan: They seem to. What they’re asking is people who have these vehicles to bring it to your authorized dealer. And because it’s a recall issue what’ll happen is, is they have to repair it at no cost. And it should be fine after they reprogram the computer in the car.

Interviewer: All right. How do you see this playing out?

Dan: Well, you know, I see unfortunately there’s been a lot of accidents so far. So hopefully GM can get the problem fixed soon. There’s been problems in the past that GM’s have…that’s had, excuse me. And it’s caused, you know, a lot of accidents and, unfortunately, people’s lives.

Interviewer: Yeah, all right. Well, this is definitely something that we will be staying on top of. Dan, thank you so much for being here this afternoon.

Dan: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.