From The New York Times, 11/23/04:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/business/23vue.html

Despite Defects, G.M. Keeps Selling Killer S.U.V.s to Elmers

By DANNY HAKIM
DETROIT -

Joram Rauchwerger, a 56-year-old postal worker in Tulsa, Okla., recently broke his 22-year-old vow never to buy another car made by General Motors.

To say the least, he regrets the decision.

Mr. Rauchwerger bought a new Saturn Vue, a small sport utility vehicle, on Oct. 11, only to discover later, by chance, that the Vue's suspension system collapsed during rollover testing performed by the government over the summer.

In August, G.M. said it would voluntarily recall all of the roughly 250,000 Saturn Vues on the road in the United States and Canada.

The swift action by G.M. bolstered Saturn's reputation for adept customer care and quieted news reports about the problem.

But in the months since, G.M. has continued to sell 2004 models of the Vue from its dealer lots -probably more than 10,000 in the last three months.

Most of the S.U.V.'s were not fixed before they were sold.

To date, G.M. has fixed only a few thousand of the quarter-million existing Vue models because it takes time to procure new suspension parts for so many vehicles.

The 2005 models were fixed before they left factories.

The government has permitted G.M. to continue selling Vues before they are fixed because it has determined that the highly unusual failure during its new rollover test does not constitute a safety defect.

And the Vue is not actually the subject of a formal recall, but a less-stringent voluntary measure known as a service campaign that permits G.M. to keep selling the vehicle without fixing it.

Consumer groups say the government's decision raises questions about how seriously regulators take their own rollover test.

And they are also disturbed that consumers have been buying vehicles that have not been fixed and that they might not even know about the problem.

Sherrie Childers Arb, Saturn's communications director, said G.M. had moved unusually quickly to address the issue.

But there does not appear to have been any directive from G.M. to its dealers to discuss the problem with potential buyers, and Mr. Rauchwerger said he was not told about it.

"If there was a risk there, we wouldn't have closed the investigation," said Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, adding that the government's test was "an extreme maneuver" and that a real- world accident had not been found that was caused by the problem.

Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety, a consumer group, said, "It's preposterous they're still selling the vehicle."

"It's even more dismaying to learn that the government is permitting G.M. to sell the vehicle by not doing a safety recall," Mr. Ditlow added.

Rollover testing of new vehicles was forced on the traffic safety agency by Congress after nearly 300 rollover deaths in the late 1990's in Ford Explorers equipped with Firestone tires.

Consumer groups are becoming increasingly concerned that regulators are not giving the results of the tests enough weight in computing the star ratings they assign vehicles for rollover performance.

Even an S.U.V. that tips up on two wheels during the testing can earn as many as three out of five stars.

And the groups are dismayed that G.M. has been allowed to continue to sell a vehicle that broke during the test.

Joan Claybrook, the president of Public Citizen, said, "I think it's irresponsible."

"For N.H.T.S.A. not to recall these vehicles on something as serious as this is entirely wrong and completely undercuts the agency's authority," added Ms. Claybrook, who ran the agency under the Carter administration and has since become one of the chief gadflies of both the industry and the agency.

"How can they say it's not serious when it fails their own test?" she said.

The Saturn Vue's problem first came to light in June when the left rear wheel of both the two- and four-wheel-drive versions of the Vue collapsed during separate rollover tests.

In the tests, the vehicles are driven through as many as 10 maneuvers known as fishhooks that include unusually sharp turns.

The failures occurred at 45 m.p.h., halting the testing.

Both G.M. officials and Mr. Tyson said the test was a severe one that exaggerated normal driving responses and that would be difficult to duplicate outside of the test track.

The agency did investigate two accidents that it initially thought could have been related to the problem, but subsequently ruled them out.

"When we closed our investigation we made a point of noting we did not recognize a safety-related defect," Mr. Tyson said.