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GM seatbelt recall affects over 1m Silverados and Sierras

The Basics: General Motors will recall 895,232 examples of the 2014-2015 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra 1500 pickups in the US. The campaign will also affect the trucks in markets worldwide, and the total number the company will recall is 1,037,982. The Problem: A steel cable connects the seatbelt to the vehicle, but over time repeated bending can cause the part to fatigue and separate. Injuries/Deaths: None reported. The Fix: Dealers will enlarge the side shield opening and install a pusher bracket on the tensioner. Technicians will also replace the entire tensioner assembly if necessary. If You Own One: GM will contact owners about the recall. The company hasn't said when those notifications would begin. More Information: There are still about 3,000 new examples of these older pickups at dealerships. Until mechanics fix the problem, these vehicles are subject to a stop-sale. Similar problems have affected the General's vehicles in the past. In 2015, the company recalled over 400,000 units of the 2011-2012 Chevrolet Malibu for fatiguing cables. It also hit over a million Lambda platform crossovers in 2014. GM Recalling Certain 2014-15 Pickups to Repair Seat Belts DETROIT – GM is voluntarily recalling 895,232 model year 2014-15 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra 1500 pickups in the United States because the flexible steel cable that connects the seat belt to the vehicle can fatigue and separate over time as a result of the driver repeatedly bending the cable when entering the seat. This issue was discovered through warranty data, and there have been no reports of crashes, injuries or fatalities related to this issue. For trucks in the field, dealers will enlarge the side shield opening, install a pusher bracket on the tensioner, and if necessary, replace the tensioner assembly. The recall in the United States includes a stop-sale of approximately 3,000 new 2014 and 2015 model year pickups still on dealer lots. Dealers will repair the vehicles prior to delivering them to customers. Customers will be notified by General Motors. They also can look up their vehicle identification number (VIN) at either https://vinrcl.safercar.gov/vin/ website or at https://my.gm.com/web/portal/ownercenter to see if their vehicle is part of the recall. GM also will voluntarily recall and repair these models in other countries where they are sold, including Canada, Mexico, and several countries in Latin America and the Middle East.

BMW, Hyundai score big in JD Power's first Tech Experience Index

While automakers are quick to brag about winning a JD Power Initial Quality Study award, the reality, as we've pointed out before, is that these ratings are somewhat misleading, since IQS doesn't necessarily distinguish genuine quality issues. JD Power's new Tech Experience Index aims to solve that problem. The new metric takes the same 90-day approach as IQS but focuses exclusively on technology – collision protection, comfort and convenience, driving assistance, entertainment and connectivity, navigation, and smartphone mirroring. It splits the industry up into just seven segments, based loosely on size, which is why the Chevrolet Camaro is in the same division (mid-size) as Kia Sorento and the Mercedes-Benz GLE-Class is in the same segment as the Hyundai Genesis (mid-size premium). It makes for some screwy bedfellows, to be sure. Still, splitting tech experience away from initial quality should allow customers to make more informed and intelligent decisions when buying new vehicles. In the inaugural study, respondents listed BMW and Hyundai as the big winners, with two segment awards – the 2 Series for small premium and the 4 Series for compact premium, and the Genesis for mid-size premium and Tucson for small segment. The Chevrolet Camaro (midsize), Kia Forte (compact), and Nissan Maxima (large) scored individual wins. Ford also had a surprising hit with the Lincoln MKC, which ranked third in the compact premium segment behind the 4 Series and Lexus IS. This is a coup for the Blue Oval, whose woeful MyFord Touch systems made the brand a victim of the IQS' flaws in the early 2010s. But Ford and other automakers might not want to celebrate just yet. According to JD Power, there's still a lot of room for improvement – navigation systems were the lowest-rated piece of tech in the study. Instead, customers repeatedly saluted collision-avoidance and safety systems, giving the category the best marks of the study and listing blind-spot monitoring and backup cameras as two must-have features – 96 percent of respondents said they wanted those two systems in their next vehicle. But this isn't really a surprise. Implementation of safety systems from brand to brand is similar, and they don't require any input from users, unlike navigation and infotainment systems which are frustratingly deep.

Foreign automakers pay from $38 to $65 per hour to non-union workers

As leaders for the United Auto Workers gather in Detroit for their Special Convention on Collective Bargaining to work out the negotiating stance for this year's new labor agreements with the Detroit 3 automakers, what they most want to do is figure out how to eliminate the two-tier wage scale. However, the lower Tier 2 wage has allowed the domestic automakers to reduce their labor costs, hire more workers, and compete better with their import competition. As it stands, per-hour labor rates including benefits are $58 at General Motors, $57 at Ford, and $48 at Fiat-Chrysler – a reflection of FCA's much greater number of Tier 2 workers. The Center for Automotive Research released a study of labor rates (including benefits) that put numbers to what the imports pay: Mercedes-Benz pays the most, at an average of $65 per hour, Volkswagen pays the least, at $38 per hour, and BMW is just a hair above that at $39 per hour. Among the Detroit competitors, Honda workers earn an average of $49 per hour, at Toyota it's $48 per hour, Nissan is $42 per hour, and Hyundai-Kia pays $41 per hour. The lower import wages are aided by their greater use of temporary workers compared to the domestics. Automotive News says the ten-dollar gap between those foreign camakers and the domestics turns out to about an extra $250 per car in labor, which adds up quickly when you're pumping out many millions of cars. That $250-per-car number is one that, come negotiating time, the Detroit 3 will want to reduce, as the UAW is trying to raise both Tier 1 and Tier 2 wages. Another wrinkle is that the domestic carmakers are considering the wide adoption of a third wage level lower than Tier 2. Some workers who do minor tasks like assembling parts trays kits and battery packs already make less than Tier 2, but the UAW will be quite wary about cementing yet another wage scale at the bottom of the system while it's trying to fight a bigger battle at the top. News Source: Automotive News - sub. req., BloombergImage Credit: AP Photo/Erik Schelzig Earnings/Financials UAW/Unions BMW Chevrolet Fiat Ford GM Honda Hyundai Kia Mercedes-Benz Nissan Toyota Volkswagen labor wages collective bargaining labor costs