GM's drive to 100% completion rate on recalls: Not there, yet

When General Motors recalled 2.6 million Chevrolet Cobalts, Saturn Ions and other small cars worldwide for faulty ignition switches in 2014, it had the daunting task of figuring out where they were, given that most were old enough to have already changed hands several times. Then it had to persuade the owners to go to a dealership for the repair.

But four years later, 92 percent of the cars that GM believes still exist outside a junkyard have been fixed globally, as have 96 percent of those in the U.S.

Though that's short of CEO Mary Barra's stated 100 percent goal, it's considerably higher than the average repair rate for automotive recalls — and far better than most campaigns involving vehicles that were out of production. GM employees still are trying to chase down the roughly 170,000 holdouts, even though enough time has passed since the recall that the company no longer has to show regulators that it's making progress.

"It's really down to pick-and-shovel work — checking individual VINs to determine: Is the vehicle even still on the road?" said Tom Wilkinson, a GM spokesman.

The effort isn't limited to the ignition switch recall, which four years ago spurred GM and other automakers to dig through latent case files for safety risks that got buried by corporate bureaucracy, missteps or indifference. GM alone issued nearly 27 million recall notices in the U.S. in 2014, when the auto industry shattered its previous record with more than 50 million vehicles recalled.

As of last month, about two-thirds of the U.S. vehicles GM recalled in 2014 have been repaired, according to data provided by the automaker for its 20 largest recalls that year. (Automakers have to file progress reports on recall repairs for at least six quarters, but GM updated the percentages at the request of Automotive News.)

That compares with an average of about 75 percent for all U.S. recalls, according to regulators at NHTSA.

Five of the 20 GM recalls, such as oil cooler fittings on about half a million 2014-15 full-size pickups and SUVs, have repair rates of more than 98 percent. But some have rates well below average, even after excluding vehicles GM has written off as scrapped because they've disappeared from state registration databases. For the largest recall of 2014, covering faulty ignitions on 5.9 million Chevy, Pontiac and Oldsmobile cars going as far back as the 1997 model year, just 46 percent have been fixed.

The result is that, despite GM's exhaustive efforts, millions of vehicles recalled in the grim aftermath of its ignition switch crisis remain unfixed even now. While that's not surprising, it shows that the potential danger posed by defects can linger long after a recall, with repair campaigns reducing the risk to the public but never eliminating it completely.

But NHTSA records for the vehicle identification number listed on the police report show that the car never received the brake recall repair. A transmission recall from 2012 also was unresolved. GM's defect notice for the 2014 recall warns that one consequence is "brake pedal application may not be required to move the shift lever out of PARK."

Burgess' family is suing GM. Their attorney, Dan Chamberlain, told Automotive News that Burgess' fiancee bought the car almost two years ago at a buy-here, pay-here store, had it serviced regularly and recently got new tires installed but was unaware of the recalls.

"They never knew it," Chamberlain said. "The car worked great. They didn't have any issues with it."

Wilkinson said GM is not commenting on the incident because of the lawsuit. Chamberlain said GM has denied responsibility for the car because it was made before the company's 2009 bankruptcy.

In general, the older a vehicle is when it's recalled, the less likely it is to receive a repair. Even if the manufacturer can locate the vehicles and notify the owners, getting them to schedule an appointment at a dealership and take the time to go in is no easy task.

Many owners of vehicles more than a few years old bought them at used-car lots or via a private-party transaction and don't have an ongoing relationship with a dealership. Some don't trust dealers, even when a recall repair is touted as free.

"These are people who are no longer in the new-car ecosystem," Wilkinson said. "They're not used to going to new-car dealers for anything. It can be a very intimidating experience. Once you're out of that ecosystem, then it starts to get harder to get recalls completed. That's why it's really helpful to find things early in the life cycle of the vehicle."

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers says recall completion rates average 83 percent for vehicles less than 5 years old, 44 percent for those 5 to 10 years old and 29 percent for those more than 10 years old.

The group, which represents the Detroit 3 and eight foreign automakers, surveyed vehicle owners to understand why they comply with or ignore recall notices.

"Many consumers are doing their own risk assessments after receiving a notice and deciding if the recall seems important enough for a response," alliance spokesman Wade Newton wrote in an email.

"Many survey respondents showed a reduced likelihood to repair a recalled vehicle if they perceived the recall to be 'low' or 'moderate' risk, saying it seemed to be 'no big deal.' We also saw that used vehicle owners are less likely to be motivated to respond to recall communications, even when they are aware of a recall on their vehicle."

Many of the 84 recalls GM issued in 2014 involved older vehicles for problems that the company had learned about over the years but never adequately addressed for whatever reason. One example: 218,000 Chevy Aveo subcompacts from 2004 through 2008 model years were recalled because the daytime running-lamp module could melt or catch fire. Only about 35 percent of the cars that are believed to be still in use have been repaired.

A report by the independent monitor overseeing the massive Takata airbag recalls reveals some of the challenges in locating and repairing older vehicles. The report cites mismatches between a vehicle's registered address and its actual location, language barriers and mistrust of automakers' recall notices, with some owners dismissing the letters as scams or attempts to sell them something.