The Switch From Hell: how a safety defect lingered at GM for 10 years

DETROIT—Inside General Motors, they called it “the switch from hell.”

The ignition switch on the steering column of the Chevrolet Cobalt and other small cars was so poorly designed that it easily slipped out of the run position, causing engines to stall. Engineers knew it; as early as 2004, a Cobalt stalled on a GM test track when the driver’s knee grazed the key fob. By GM’s admission, the defective switches caused over 50 crashes and at least 13 deaths.

Yet inside the auto giant, no one saw it as a safety problem. For 11 years.

A 315-page report by an outside attorney found that the severity of the switch problem was downplayed from the start. Even as dozens of drivers were losing control of their vehicles in terrifying crashes, GM engineers, safety investigators and lawyers considered the switches a “customer satisfaction” problem, incorrectly believing that people could still steer the cars even though the power steering went out when the engines stalled. In safety meetings, people gave what was known as the “GM nod,” agreeing on a plan of action but doing nothing.

READ MORE: Incompetence, negligence led to delayed recall, GM head says

“The decision not to categorize the problem as a safety issue directly impacted the level of urgency with which the problem was addressed and the effort to resolve it,” wrote Anton Valukas, the former federal prosecutor hired by GM to produce the report.

The Valukas report makes no mention of negligence. But it says plenty about incompetence throughout GM.

The Switch from Hell
In the late 1990s, GM patented a new ignition switch designed to be cheaper, less prone to failure and less apt to catch fire than previous switches. But in prototype vehicles, the switch worked poorly. Veteran switch engineer Ray DeGiorgio had to redesign its electrical system.

The switch had mechanical problems, too. It didn’t meet GM’s specifications for the force required to rotate it. But increasing the force would have required more changes. So in 2002, DeGiorgio—who made several critical decisions in this case—approved the switch anyway. He signed an email to the switch supplier, “Ray (tired of the switch from hell) DeGiorgio.”

Almost immediately, GM started getting complaints of unexpected stalling from drivers of the Saturn Ion, the first car equipped with the switch. The complaints continued when the switch was used for the Cobalt, which went on sale in 2004.

Yet it wasn’t seen as a safety issue. Even if the engine stalled and the power steering went out, engineers reasoned, drivers could still wrestle the cars to the side of the road.

As more complaints came in, GM kept viewing the problem as “annoying but not particularly problematic,” Valukas wrote. “Once so defined, the switch problem received less attention, and efforts to fix it were impacted by cost considerations that would have been immaterial had the problem been properly categorized in the first instance,” his report said.

In a critical failure to link cause and effect, engineers trying to diagnose the problem didn’t understand that the air bags wouldn’t inflate in a crash if the engines stalled, failing to protect people when they needed it most.

In the meantime, GM customers kept buying the compact cars. Sales topped 200,000 in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Company Investigations
From 2004 to 2006, multiple GM committees considered fixes but displayed no sense of urgency, Valukas wrote. Crashes and deaths mounted, catching the attention of company lawyers and engineers. Yet no one at GM figured out that the bad switches were disabling the air bags.

Fixes were rejected as too costly. Instead the company sent a bulletin to dealers explaining the problem and telling them to warn customers not to dangle too many objects from their key chains. GM elected not to use the word “stall” in the bulletin, saying that was a “hot” word that could indicate there was a more serious safety issue.

A Wisconsin State Patrol Trooper named Keith Young proved better at diagnosing the problem than GM employees, the report said. While investigating a 2006 Cobalt crash that killed two teen-age girls, he checked the wreckage and found the ignition switch in the “accessory” position; the air bags weren’t deployed. Going further, Young found five complaints to government safety regulators about Cobalt engines stalling while being driven. Three drivers reported their legs touched the ignition or key chain before the engine quit.

Young also found the 2006 GM bulletin to dealers that detailed the switch problem. He determined that the Cobalt’s ignition slipped into accessory before the crash, causing the air bag failure. A team from Indiana University that probed the crash in 2007 also made the connection. GM personnel did not.

The fix is in
In 2007, John Sprague, an engineer working with GM’s liability defence team, began tracking Cobalt air bag problems. He noticed a pattern and theorized a link to the ignitions. He also saw that the air bag problems stopped after model year 2007 and wondered if the ignition switch had been changed, Valukas wrote.

He was right, though he didn’t know it at the time. In 2006, DeGiorgio had signed off on a change that increased the force needed to turn the key. But when asked in 2009—and later under oath—DeGiorgio denied making a change.

Keeping the same part number despite the change prevented GM investigators from learning what happened for years, according to Valukas.

The Bombshell
By 2011, GM’s outside lawyers were warning that the company could be facing costly verdicts for failing to fix the air bag problem. Company lawyers sought another investigation, but the engineer assigned to the case discounted the ignition switch theory.

The probe became stuck after two years with no results.

Then came what GM’s outside lawyers called a “bombshell.” An expert working for a law firm that was suing GM X-rayed switches from separate model years and discovered they were different—GM’s first knowledge of DeGiorio’s change to the switch.

Even so, GM’s recall committee wasn’t immediately told about the fatal accidents, so it waited for several months before it started recalling the cars in February, Valukas wrote.

Barra told GM employees Thursday that Valukas’ report was thorough, tough and “deeply troubling.” She said 15 people—including Ray DeGiorgio—were dismissed from the company and five others disciplined, and she outlined changes to make sure such a problem doesn’t happen again.

But some have their doubts.

“If GM operated in the manner described over a full decade, then there are many more safety problems out there today,” said Jere Beasley, an attorney who is suing GM on behalf of victims.