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GM recalling 117,000 sedans, crossovers, SUVs, pickups and vans

General Motors has issued a stop-sale to dealers and has notified the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration of its intention to recall 117,000 vehicles in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Of those vehicles, only 4,500 are at dealerships.
The affected vehicles include the Cadillac CTS and Chevrolet Impala sedans, fullsize SUVs (Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Tahoe and Suburban and GMC Yukon and Yukon XL), Lambda-platform crossovers (Chevy Traverse, Buick Enclave and GMC Acadia), heavy-duty pickups (Chevy Silverado HD and GMC Sierra HD) and fullsize vans (Chevy Express and GMC Savana). The sedans and body-on-frame SUVs include model years 2013 and 2014, while the CUVs, heavy-duty pickups and vans are limited to MY2014.
GM confirmed the recall to Autoblog via an emailed statement (which we've included below). According to the statement, the issue at hand in what is the company's 69th recall of 2014 covers the chassis-control module. Automotive News is reporting that a problem in the chassis-control system could cause a short in the module, which could cause the engine to stall or fail to start. The fault could also affect the trailer-brake control, provided it's equipped.

Confident new Cadillac marketing boss ready to take on Tesla, BMW

When there's a former BMW executive heading Cadillac's efforts to boost sales of its only plug-in, it's a pretty safe guess that the marketing emphasis won't be on environmental friendliness and tree-hugging tendencies. The General Motors luxury brand has appointed ex-Bimmer executive Uwe Ellinghaus to be its marketing chief late last year, and the German-born Ellinghaus is now saying that he's targeting potential customers of Tesla Motors, in addition to BMW, for potential growth in sales of the Cadillac ELR extended-range plug-in. Appointed to Cadillac's head of marketing last November, Ellinghaus recently told Advertising Age that GM needs to highlight the Cadillac's looks and performance. He complimented Tesla for putting more emphasis on those attributes in the Model S than on its lack of emissions or lack of refueling costs (but Tesla hasn't shied away from highlighting the EV's savings). Ellinghaus says that trying to gear advertising "for people who are tree-huggers and green-wash an entire brand" won't be successful. You don't say. So far, the ELR hasn't made much of a dent in US car sales. Through May, Cadillac, which spent about $280 million on all of its US marketing last year, sold 293 units, whereas Tesla had been approaching the 11,000-unit figure for the Model S. With that in mind, Cadillac may be working on a sportier version of the ELR, as spy shots of a test vehicle from May revealed larger brakes and wheels. You can read our First Drive impressions of the ELR here.

Meet the other Cadillac wagon. It's as American as ABBA

The Cadillac CTS Wagon became a cult classic the second it went on sale. We all knew that it was never going to sell in anything approaching significant numbers, and if that "we" didn't include those actually working at GM, one would have to wonder what they were smoking. Cadillac was still having a hard enough time trying to convince people that it was now a BMW-fighting sport luxury brand rather than the purveyor of Grandpa-piloted land yachts. To many, a sport sedan like the CTS seemed like a stretch. But a CTS sport wagon? It sure seemed like GM was just doing things for funzies, an impression only enhanced by the CTS-V Wagon. Forget cult classic. That thing was an instant legend.  And yet, the CTS wasn't the only Cadillac of that era offered as a wagon. It wasn't even the first. Before GM said "to hell with it, let's have some fun" on this side of the pond, over in Europe, it had already taken a page from its old badge-engineering playbook to create the 2006 Cadillac BLS Wagon. It was available as a sedan, too, but its awkward majesty is best enjoyed as the long-roof model.  There's just something off about the whole thing, right? That's probably because it also looks vaguely familiar, as if you've seen it before. So where the hell does this thing come from? Sweden! Behind that Cadillac Art and Science face is a Saab 9-3, and in the case of the BLS Wagon, the Saab 9-3 Sport Combi wagon. The roofline is the dead giveaway, as no other wagon has ever looked like that. In fact, the roof and windows were the only exterior elements to copy directly over from 9-3 to BLS. No kidding. With the Cadillac front end, doesn't the Saab-funky-boxiness make it look like a miniature hearse? The answer is yes. GM's design team, led by Ed Welburn, was quite pleased with his work. Perhaps it even egged him on to create a real Cadillac sport wagon? "The whole team was very excited to apply Cadillac's design language to a wagon for the first time," said Welburn in a press release from the time. "The V-shaped chrome-plated grille, a Cadillac hallmark, is picked up again by the shape of the rear window, and the body side character lines make it unmistakably a Cadillac." The interior is surprisingly different from the 9-3, including the ignition switch migrating from the center console up to the steering column. It also wasn't exactly in keeping with the Cadillac norm of the time.