“There is something wrong with these cars,” Ms. She took a loss on the car, just to get rid of it. Her lawyer finally negotiated a replacement Cobalt for Ms. and her local dealer in Levittown, Pa., but was repeatedly dismissed. Silverman’s firm, Kimmel & Silverman, after her Cobalt had engine problems in 2005. “They did fight,” he said of General Motors. Karman’s were resolved quickly and with minimal resistance, others handled by his firm were not. Robert Silverman, her lawyer, said that while some claims like Ms. Give me the money and I’ll go somewhere else and buy a car that runs.' ” “I said, ‘No way in this world do I want another Cobalt. “They offered me my money or another car,” Ms. As required by Pennsylvania’s lemon law, the automaker also paid her legal costs. took the car back and issued a full refund, including the trade-in value of Ms. She called a lawyer and, in April 2006, G.M. She finally parked the car in her garage and never drove it again. The engine died twice more and the dealership replaced her gas pedal, but the problem persisted. The dealer said she was imagining things, she said. Karman took her car in for service, she was told there was nothing wrong with it. “I took my car in to get the door locks replaced after being trapped in my car after the battery died.”ĭozens of complaints from owners focused on the same eerie scene: They would be driving, they would hear a chime and then they would lose control of their steering.Īnd then there were the cars that turned themselves off with no warning.Īrleen Karman of Evans City, Pa., said her two-month-old blue Cobalt shut off one day in 2005 as she approached a stop sign. “When it rains, my car doors do not open,” wrote a driver in August 2008. “I got in car closed door and rear window fell out,” another wrote in January 2006. “The car locks and unlocks itself regularly,” wrote one Cobalt driver in June 2010. In addition to the buybacks under lemon laws, details of the problems with the Cobalts were cited in complaints filed with federal safety regulators - more than 4,500 about Cobalts from January 2005 to March 2014, according to a review of the database by The Times. Already, 10,000 loaners have been provided. has made loaner cars available to customers who are uncomfortable driving their cars while they wait for them to be recalled and fixed. The automaker has recalled nearly 2.6 million of the cars, including over a million Cobalts, in the last two months. The Cobalt is among the six models of small cars that General Motors has recently recalled for the faulty ignition switch that is prone to turn off if it is bumped, shutting down the engine and disabling air bags. The Heasters complained to dealerships and then to G.M. “It would just die in the middle of the road,” Ms. They had bought a red 2005 Cobalt for their 16-year-old daughter, Heather, but within weeks, it was repeatedly losing power and the family thought it was dangerous for her to drive. Ronald and Gwenda Heaster of Crawley, W.Va., knew right away that something was wrong with their car. Martin, said the automaker “complies with all state lemon law requirements, including the resale of repurchased vehicles.” There is no law against reselling lemons, and a G.M. At least four of the repurchased cars in Florida were resold to new owners, The Times found, including one that was identified as potentially having an ignition switch problem. Complaints from buyers included such bizarre occurrences as the engine running after the key had been removed. The Times review of the lemon law databases shows the Cobalt had problems well beyond the ignition switch. “It’s a vehicle with a poor track record, with deep concerns about its safety and performance,” said Rick Soletski, executive director of the International Association of Lemon Law Administrators, a group of American and Canadian officials that acts as an advocate for lemon programs. filing with federal regulators, that the automaker’s brand quality division urged its engineers to reopen an investigation into the car’s faulty ignition switch, which was one source of buyback complaints. was so alarmed by the early number of buybacks, according to a G.M. General Motors declined to disclose how many Cobalts had been bought back under lemon laws, saying, “It is very difficult to answer questions about claims that may be more than a decade old.” That makes it impossible to calculate a precise nationwide total because reporting and disclosure rules differ from state to state, and federal regulators do not compile such data.īut in Florida, a state that collects data on repurchased lemons and some other buybacks, the Cobalt was the most-repurchased car in its class manufactured in 2005, its first model year.
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