Many GM Car Owners Alleging Faulty Speedometers

(CBS) It’s problem that could affect thousands of vehicles. Speedometers that leave you unable to judge whether the speed you're going is safe.

CBS' Anna Werner investigates a problem more and more drivers are experiencing with certain GMC trucks and SUV’s.

CBS Investigates has found hundreds of complaints to the government about allegedly faulty speedometers and mechanics and car owners who want General Motors Corp. to recall them and pay for the repairs.

Imagine cruising along, and all of a sudden, you have no way to tell how fast you're going: in a school zone, on a sharp curve, or simply in your neighborhood. It’s a problem more and more drivers say they're experiencing in a group of popular vehicles, including drivers like Lee Kratzer.

For Kratzer, the shock came when he was driving his GMC Yukon down the highway.

“I said, holy mackerel!” Kratzer said.

Why? Because when he looked down at his speedometer it read 120 miles an hour.

“I knew something was wrong then,” he said.

But what was wrong wasn't his speed. The next time his speedometer read 120, his car was stopped, parked in his own driveway.

“I would show it to my kids and I would say, look you guys can't get out yet, we're going 120 miles an hour. To them it was a big joke,” Kratzer said.

But Kratzer, a father of two, it wasn't so funny.

“My biggest concern was safety," he said. "You have to drive more what feels real safe and you can't count on the vehicle itself. Driving my kids to school that was actually the time when I would worry the most.”

When we drive, we constantly check our car's speedometer. It’s a measure of safety. However CBS has discovered that the owners of hundreds of GMC truck and SUV owners are reporting that their speedometers are suddenly failing, leaving them wondering what speed they are really going.

As many as 10 popular models including Suburbans, Tahoes, Silverados and Sierras are involved. One driver who's part of a lawsuit against GM shot video as his speedometer went nuts. On the video you can hear him saying “Alright, we're going 70, and we're sitting still". Then the video shows the car starting to move again, and his voice saying, “going about 20 miles an hour…but the speedometer shows 100.”

“Some are pegged at 120, some are bouncing all over,” says mechanic Jeff Oliphant, who specializes in speedometer repair. “We’ve never had one this bad, nothing to this magnitude.”

He believes the cause is a defective part is a tiny motor that activates the speedometer needle. He says it that costs $500 to $600 to repair.

“The amount of them, the quantity of vehicles that we have had in here that is what is staggering,” Oliphant said.

In fact, our own review of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data found more than 450 complaints, saying speedometers were "very erratic", “stuck at 60", “pinning at 120.”

One person said after his speedometer needle stuck at 140 mph, an officer gave him a ticket: What for? A broken speedometer.

The head of the Center for Auto Safety says, “When you're looking at over 400 complaints over five model years in ten different models, that's a widespread defect that GM simply has ignored.”

Expert Clarence Ditlow says GM should take action.

“A faulty speedometer is clearly a safety hazard," Ditlow said. "Clearly an accurate speedometer is a safe speedometer, and one that jumps all over the map should be recalled.”

GM’s response? A spokeswoman says because of ongoing litigation, they can't comment at this time. The litigation? A class-action lawsuit filed this week by San Francisco attorney Michael Ram. Lee Kratzer is one of the people suing.

The model years covered in that lawsuit are 2003 through 2007.

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Source:
http://keyetv.com/topstories/local_story_122181951.html