What happens when you put your iPad on the front passenger seat of a 2012 Buick Enclave?

That depends on which General Motors source you consult. In May, the automaker sent out a Technical Service Bulletin warning that when “certain electronic devices” such as computers, MP3 players and cell phones are placed in the front passenger seat of a wide range of recent models, the front passenger airbag indicator may illuminate, enabling the airbag, and activating the seatbelt reminder light and warning chime – due to electromagnetic interference (EMI). Even though that iPad only weighs 1.5 pounds, the seat sensor suddenly thinks that this designated seating position is occupied.

More recently, an OnStar operator told a GM owner that if a passenger is seated in the right front seat with an electronic device in his or her lap, EMI may disable the airbag. In other words, if the sensor correctly perceives that an occupant is in the seat, then interference from the iPad tells the sensor to turn the airbag off. In complaints reported to SRS GM owners said electronic devices held by a front seat passenger turned off the passenger airbag.

“We called OnStar and spoke to a tech,” said one owner. “He confirmed that this can be caused by cell phones and cell towers.”

If one consults the owner’s manual of a 2012 Buick Enclave (which is among the models covered in the May 25 TSB), it warns: “The front passenger safety belt reminder light and chime may turn on if an object is put on the seat such as a briefcase, handbag, grocery bag, laptop, or other electronic device. To turn off the reminder light and/or chime, remove the object from the seat or buckle the safety belt.” Is this a warning about lightweight objects triggering a seatbelt sensor? Does the seat sensor confuse an iPhone with an occupant too small for safe protection from the airbag? Or, more likely, is this an obfuscated EMI warning? The owner’s manual is silent on this caution.

EMI is an old problem; automakers have been designing to protect vehicle electronics from it for decades. For example, a Florida circuit judge’s scathing decision to set aside a civil jury verdict in favor of Ford Motor Company in a Unintended Acceleration case involving an Aerostar recounted evidence showing that as far back as 1976, Ford engineers obtained a patent describing a design for the cruise control system’s printed circuit board to reduce the risk of a sudden acceleration posed by EMI. The switches in the cruise control system Ford developed and installed in millions of vehicles were vulnerable at gear engagement to a current spike from electromagnetic interference that can bypass the control logic and induce the servo to pull the throttle wide open. (Ford went on to conceal this problem from the NHTSA and its own testifying experts in subsequent cases, for years. See How Ford Concealed Evidence of Electronically Caused UA.)

More recently, EMI was theorized, and discarded, by NHTSA and its research contractor, NASA’s Engineering Safety Center, as a cause of Toyota UA – although NHTSA’s Vehicle Research and Test Center was able to produce a spike in RPMs in EMI tests on a 2007 Lexus. In a report that closed a 2007 Lexus floor mat interference investigation, ODI investigators said:

“Multiple electrical signals were introduced into the electrical system to test the robustness of the electronics against single point failures due to electrical interference. The system proved to have multiple redundancies and showed no vulnerabilities to electrical signal activities. Magnetic fields were introduced in proximity to the throttle body and accelerator pedal potentiometers and did result in an increase in engine revolutions per minute (RPM) of up to approximately 1,000 RPM, similar to a cold-idle engine RPM level.”

And in Dec. 2007, a 2006 Tundra owner filed this complaint with ODI:

“I am a [sic] ASE certified master tech and mechanic of 15 years. I owned a [sic] auto repair shop for 5 years and have since returned the vehicle to Toyota lease. My 2006 Toyota Tundra would accelerate on its own at times. To stop it I would have to turn off the key, pull over and then restart it. Being a master technician I assure you it was electronic in nature. In no way was it a floor mat or accelerator pedal stuck. I did take it in for repair and was told there was no problem found. It did happen in the same location 3 times and could have been caused by EMI. Again, it was electrical in nature, there is no doubt of this.”

But, back to GM. The May 25 TSB covers 12 models over the 2009-2012 model years: the Buick Enclave; Cadillac CTS and SRX; Chevrolet Cobalt; Chevrolet HHR; Chevrolet Impala, Traverse; Chevrolet Equinox; Chevrolet Sonic; GMC Acadia; GMC Terrain; Saturn Outlook and Saturn Vue.

It warns “some electronic devices placed on the front passenger seat may interfere with the electric field generated by the PPS system, causing it to enable (turn ON) the passenger airbag and turn on the safety belt reminder light and chime – even though the seat is not occupied. The electronic device does not necessarily need to be turned on to cause this condition.”

It also cautions techs: “Never rest the diagnostic scan tool or components on the passenger front seat or touch the passenger front seat while the diagnostic scan tool is in contact with your body. This may cause the SIR lamp to illuminate while holding the diagnostic scan tool because your body can transfer the electronic ‘noise’ to the sensor mat in the passenger front seat.” (This may explain what happens when a right front seat passenger uses a cell phone.)

The fix was to simply clear the codes – which could relate to a variety of error messages involving the seat sensor or the ECU – and send the customer on his way.

If the GM owner lives in the Texas Panhandle, however, the problem is worse, and requires a more intensive fix. On May 25, the automaker issued a second and unusual warning for techs in Texas. This TSB warned that the airbag warning light could behave erratically in the presence of EMI.

“This condition may be caused by possible electromagnetic interference in the Amarillo, Texas area from external sources such as aviation airspace traffic radar, creating erratic sensor information to the SDM,” the bulletin said.

This TSB covered 18 models in the 2010 and 2011 model years including 2010-2011 Cadllac Eacalades; Chevrolet Avalanche, Silverado, Suburban, Tahoe, Yukon Denalis; and GMC Sierra and Yukon Denali. In this case, the techs were required to amend the sensor by adding ferrite clamp beads on either side of the inflatable restraint sensor wire harness.

There are several international voluntary standards and vehicle manufacturers have set their own criteria governing EMI, but no Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard. But as the world goes ever more wireless, are automakers and NHTSA keeping up? According to EMI Expert Keith Armstrong, “some vehicle manufacturer’s standard tests only apply to the normal operating functions of the components and subsystems. For example, an airbag should not operate, a speedometer should show the correct speed within specified tolerances, etc., but they lack requirements to test the correct operation of safety systems, by stimulating them with a signal that should make them operate, and check that they always do operate as designed whilst exposed to EM disturbances.”

As the transformation of an automobile continues from a collection of mechanical parts to a computer on wheels with communication interfaces to non-vehicle wireless devices from the driver and passengers inside, or from sources outside the vehicle, today’s vehicles are expected to function correctly in a very noisy electrical environment.

REHOBOTH, MA – As Enterprise Rent-A-Car and General Motors scramble to correct the false advertising that claimed former fleet vehicles being sold used were equipped with “standard” side curtain airbags, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has agreed to correct the information on its consumer website.

Over a three-year period, GM had offered fleet buyers as a cost savings the option of deleting the standard side airbags in 2006-2008 Chevrolet Impalas and MY 2008-2009 Chevrolet Cobalt and Buick LaCrosse models. Last month, investigations by SRS and The Kansas City Star revealed that the troubled automaker and Enterprise, its biggest fleet customer and the nation’s largest used car seller, were re-selling these altered fleet vehicles – mostly the Impalas –  to retail consumers and advertising them as having the important safety feature.

After the story received national attention, Enterprise, which had ordered 66,000 Impalas without the standard side air bags, offered to buy back 750 of them sold under false pretenses for $750 over the Kelly Blue Book value. GM offered a desultory defense of the practice, saying that it did not violate NHTSA’s minimum standards for side impact protection and that the discount was an important selling point for its fleet customers.

NHTSA, however, has taken the matter more seriously. On September 2, SRS president Sean Kane wrote to NHTSA Acting Administrator Ronald Medford asking the agency to amend its side-impact NCAP information for the affected models. Medford responded two days later, with a thank-you note to Kane and a commitment to quick action.

“In light of this information, the agency reviewed side airbag data provided by GM for the models in question and found the information provided is misleading,” Medford wrote. “Accordingly, the agency has revised the safercar.gov website to indicate that side curtain airbags are optional equipment for Model Years (MY) 2006-2008 Chevrolet Impalas and MY 2008-2009 Chevrolet Cobalt and Buick LaCrosse models. The agency also amended the crash test ratings information to reflect that the models tested for side impact crash protection were equipped with the optional side curtain airbags.”

Further, Medford said, beginning with model year 2011, the agency would request that vehicle manufacturers specifically state whether fleet models have different safety equipment from those models sold at dealerships and that differences will be noted in the ratings information provided.

The Impala, for example, won a five-star side-impact crash rating for the front driver’s seat and the four-star rating for the rear with the aid of the side curtain air bag. The vehicle would have likely received a lower rating without it.

“NHTSA clearly recognized that this is an important issue to consumers – and not just in this immediate instance with GM vehicles,” Kane said. “By taking the extra step and requesting manufacturers disclose differences in fleet safety equipment, the agency is sending a clear signal that it won’t be party to the obfuscation of what is really ‘standard.’”

Kane also wrote to GM CEO Fritz Henderson in early September, suggesting that GM ought to be an active participant in undoing the damage. While GM did remove the erroneous information from its Certified GM website, many GM dealers continued to advertise the Impalas as having the standard feature. Kane asked GM to re-brand the altered vehicles “to alert all future purchasers and dealers that this safety equipment was not included.” SRS’s request also called on GM to immediately “change its advertising and marketing materials to reflect that the feature is not standard, and that you alert all dealers and car buyer’s guide organizations of this anomaly on the 2006 through 2008 Impala, 2008 through 2009 Cobalt and any other vehicles that GM has marketed with “standard” side curtain airbags that were offered to fleet buyers without the feature.”

GM replied the following day, denying that the status of safety feature was ever hidden from buyers: “When modifications or deletes are made to a GM vehicle for fleet purchase, the deleted equipment is clearly marked on the original window sticker as well as on the invoice. In GM-sponsored closed auctions, the content of each GM vehicle is fully disclosed,” said Brian Latouf, GM’s Director Global Structure & Safety Integration, Center in a letter to SRS.

Otherwise, Latouf said, the information on how to tell if the vehicle actually contained the standard side airbag was tucked away in the owner’s manual. In the case of auctions outside of GM’s control, buyer beware, he added.

In addition, GM said that it had taken steps to prevent further misunderstandings, including: modifying its GM Certified website so that when a dealer printed the window sticker, the side airbag feature would no longer be automatically listed; contacted internet seller sites, such as AutoTrader.com, to inform them about the deletion for fleet vehicles; and asked eBay to change its advertisements for all certified GM used vehicles. The manufacturer also asked dealers with GM certified used vehicles and third party providers to correct their window stickers for the affected vehicles.

SRS estimates that approximately 200,000 fleet vehicles have the deleted side curtain airbags despite GM’s assertion that the feature was standard.

More on side airbag deletion:

SRS letter to GM

SRS letter to NHTSA

GM response to SRS

NHTSA response to SRS

GM Allows Removal of Standard Side Airbag for Fleet Buyers

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has rebuffed a nearly eight-year-old petition by General Motors to require daytime running lights on all passenger vehicles, saying that there is no credible statistical proof that the devices significantly improve safety.

“While DRLs may be beneficial for certain scenarios, the agency has been unable to document overall safety benefits due to DRL installation which could serve as a basis for mandating them,” the agency wrote in its denial.

GM had petitioned the agency in December 2001, based on two studies showing that daytime running lights significantly reduced multiple vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian crashes. The 2000 study showed a 5 percent decrease in the former category and a 9 percent decrease in the latter. The second study, which GM commissioned from Exponent in 2008, analyzed data regarding GM, Saab, Toyota, Subaru, Volkswagen and Volvo vehicles and 1996-2005 crash statistics from 18 states to examine the impact of DRLs on head-on, rural area, highway, rain/fog, angle, urban area, sideswipe, pedestrian, and motorcycle crashes. This study also found a significant reduction in crashes for vehicles equipped with DLRs: passenger cars saw a 12.35 percent decrease in head-on multiple vehicle crashes and a 9 percent decrease in rural daytime multivehicle crashes.

But NHTSA criticized the statistical methods used in both studies, saying one study used inappropriate parameters to create the sample. It dismissed some of the results of the other as pure bull – such as a claim in the Exponent study that DRLs would reduce night-time fatal crashes by 11.4 percent for passenger cars and daytime single-vehicle crashes by 9.4 percent for light trucks.

“These results cast doubt on the validity of the GM study because we do not believe these crash types are plausibly affected by DRL installation. The authors claim these numbers serve as useful control groups and benchmarks for comparison. The agency respectfully disagrees, and believes this may demonstrate the lack of control for changes that may have occurred during the study period.”

Depending on how the safety benefit was predicted, NHTSA’s own statistical studies, undertaken in 2000, 2004 and 2008, found varying degrees of safety benefits. In its rejection of the GM petition, the agency said that it was now basing its conclusions on analyses using a method called the ratio of odds ratio. (This was the statistical tool used in the much-criticized Exponent study.) In the 2004 NHTSA study, for example, when researchers used generalized statistical odds, “ a conventional statistical technique,” they found that daytime running lights reduced opposite direction daytime fatal crashes by 5 percent, reduced opposite direction/angle daytime non-fatal crashes by 5 percent; reduced non-motorists, pedestrians and cyclists, daytime fatalities in single-vehicle crashes by 12 percent; and reduced daytime opposite direction fatal crashes of a passenger vehicle with a motorcycle by 23 percent.

However, at the insistence of the study’s peer reviewers, the agency ran the numbers using the odds ratio technique. This produced a markedly different result, with the DRLs producing slight, but significantly insignificant, increases in crashes in vehicles so-equipped. The one positive, but notable exception, to this counter-intuitive result was the effect on crashes involving motorcycles. In this case, DRLs reduced daytime opposite direction fatal crashes of a passenger vehicle with a motorcycle by 26 percent.

The agency’s stance is surprising considering that the European Union is poised to make DRLs mandatory on all new vehicles by 2011. The EU’s rationale is also rooted in the results of studies, showing that these lights can reduce day-time crashes by up to 12 percent for passenger vehicles and 10 percent for motorcycles. Sweden was the first country to mandate daytime running lights in 1977, because of the country’s low light levels. The regulation then spread to the other Scandinavian countries. According to a 2004 EU report, 11 nations, including Canada and the sunnier locales of Israel and Italy require daytime running lights.

NHTSA’s study results are also in contradiction to a wealth of other studies, conducted in the U.S. and abroad, showing a measureable and significant safety benefit for daytime running lights. Some 14 studies, beginning in 1972, have found crash reductions ranging from 29 percent to 3 percent, depending on the type of crash. For example, a Norwegian study found a 10 percent reduction in multiple-vehicle daytime crashes. Two Danish studies, conducted after the nation began requiring them, found smaller, but similar decreases in day-time crashes and found left-turn crashes reduced by more than a third. Transport Canada also did research on this question, comparing 1990 model year vehicles equipped with daytime running lights to 1989 model year vehicles without them, and found a reduction of 11 percent.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has been studying the effect of DRLs since 1985. The first study showed that commercial fleet passenger vehicles modified with DLRs experienced 7 percent fewer daytime multiple-vehicle crashes. A second IIHS study in 2002 of crashes in nine states found a 3 percent decrease in daytime crashes for DRL-equipped vehicles.

“I think the research is pretty clear,” says IIHS spokesman Russ Rader. “We didn’t submit a formal comment, but we did support making them mandatory. The benefit is small, but it is there.”

Nonetheless, this is the second time the agency has turned down a request to make DRLs mandatory. The IIHS petitioned NHTSA for their mandatory use in 1985. The agency granted the petition, then abruptly terminated the rulemaking in 1988, saying that the matter wasn’t “a national safety issue,” and that automakers opposed it. Then, in 1990, GM decided that it was for the installation of DLRs. Many state traffic laws prohibited the use of headlights during daylight hours, creating a formidable stumbling block. The automaker convinced NHTSA to override state laws and harmonize its regulations with Canada, which required them, with a new rule. Established in 1993, the amendment to FMVSS 108, permitting the voluntary application of daytime running lights, superseded those state laws.

The debate then turned to the limits on the intensity of the daytime beams. GM wanted a 7000 cd limit, in keeping with Canadian regulations. The agency resisted, fearing that the lights would visually obscure the turn signals and create unnecessary glare. In the Final Rule, the agency decided to reach a compromise, allowing a 7000 cd upper limit on upper beam , as long as they were mounted below the side mirror and inside the mirror mounting heights to avoid direct mirror glare from the rear. After GM installed the DLRs on all of their makes, including Saab and Saturn, the agency began to get complaints from motorists about the distracting glare. In 1998, the agency published an amendment, cutting the permitted intensity by more than half, to an upper limit of 3,000 cd.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Obama administration’s drive-by bankruptcies have left the victims of defect-related crashes to eat their dust, but consumer advocates are turning to other strategies to force Chrysler and General Motors to do the right thing.

Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, along with Consumer Action, Center for Auto Safety, Center for Justice & Democracy, and National Consumers League, have petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to require labels informing buyers of a used Chrysler’s unique liabilities. The label they’ve suggested goes like this:

“WARNING    This vehicle was produced prior to the date when the Chrysler bankruptcy was approved. If you buy this vehicle and are injured or killed, even if your injuries were caused by the manufacturer, you or your survivors will not be able to recover your losses by taking action against the manufacturer. If your passengers are injured or killed, even if their injuries were caused by the manufacturer, they and their survivors will not be able to recover their losses by taking action against the manufacturer.”

The California-based advocacy group CARS is asking for the designation under the FTC’s 1985 Used Car Rule, which was promulgated to prevent used car dealers from misrepresenting or failing to mention to buyers important facts about warranty coverage, via a Buyer’s Guide sticker displayed on the vehicle.

The bankruptcy and sale of the once-innovative American carmaker Chrysler to Fiat SPA concluded on June 10th, with $6.6 billion in federal financing. In just 42 days, the government pushed the major players over the finish line and successfully fended off attempts from investors and victims of Chrysler defects to re-jigger the deal. The owners of the “new” Chrysler are a union retirees’ trust, with 55 percent, Fiat, with a 20-percent share that could grow to 35 percent, and the U.S. and Canadian governments, which hold minority stakes.

In a June 11 New York Times story, an anonymous Treasury official said: “This morning’s closing represents a proud moment in Chrysler’s storied history. The Chrysler-Fiat alliance has now exited the bankruptcy process and is poised to emerge as a competitive, viable automaker.”

“If shirking your due care responsibilities to customers who trusted you is a source of pride, then Chrysler’s chest must be puffed out so far that the buttons are popping off its pinstriped jacket. The bankruptcy has wiped away all current, pending and future claims against vehicles manufactured by the ‘old Chrysler,’ said Safety Research & Strategies president Sean Kane.

General Motors, which completed its bankruptcy nearly a month later, had sought the same freedoms from product liability. But the company was taken aback by the highly publicized efforts of consumer advocates and attorneys representing defects victims to retain their rights to seek compensation via the state tort system. There were news reports about the victims GM was leaving behind and television advertisements opposing GM’s move to shed all liability. Twelve state attorneys general from Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Vermont, Illinois, California, Kansas and Ohio objected to the sales, arguing that the bankruptcy court overstepped its legal authority in granting the elimination of successor liability.

GM and the White House’s Auto Task Force, headed by Steven Ratner, who has since stepped down, came to an eleventh-hour agreement, in which GM agreed to accept liability for any future claims against vehicles built under its old ownership. Current and pending claims, however, have been wiped off the table.

In a mere 40 days, GM emerged from bankruptcy with fewer brands, fewer workers and a whole lot of taxpayer cash – $50 billion. (GM is keeping its Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC brands and selling or shuttering Hummer, Saturn, Saab and Pontiac.) As of July 10, the majority owners of General Motors are the taxpayers, with a 61 percent stake; and the United Auto Workers health care trust, which owns 17 percent; the Canadian government, which owns 11.7 percent, with the remainder going to bondholders of the old company.

CEO Fritz Henderson told the Associated Press that the revamped automaker will be “faster and more responsive to customers than the old one.”

“Apparently the new GM is doing that by telling the old customers who have been harmed by a GM defect to drop dead,” said Rosemary Shahan of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety.

Best feet forward aside, consumer and auto safety advocates are not done demanding that the new companies do something to compensate victims of defects. Indiana Congressman Andre Carson has filed the Jeremy Warriner Consumer Protection Act after Jeremy Warriner, who lost both legs and suffered severe burns in a vehicle fire he alleges was sparked by a faulty brake fluid container on his 2005 Jeep Wrangler. The bill would require the newly-restructured GM and Chrysler to carry liability insurance and force the carmakers to cover claims made against them for any defective products produced by their predecessor company. A consortium of attorneys and consumer groups are working on other avenues of redress.

GM / Chrysler Bankruptcies: What’s In What’s Out

The terms of the Chrysler and GM bankruptcies have created arbitrary and artificial classes of claimants. Here are the current parameters for liability:

Chrysler: Date of Bankruptcy Exit: June 10

What’s Out: The new Chrysler has no liability for any vehicles built by the old Chrysler. That means: the liability for all current, pending and future claims of any Chrysler vehicle built before the automaker exited bankruptcy belong to the old company.

Recovery of Unsecured Claims: Projected to be zero (or at most ½ cent/dollar).

General Motors: Date of Bankruptcy Exit: July 10

What’s In: The new GM agreed to assume liability for vehicles built by the old company, if the incident occurs after July 10, when GM exited bankruptcy.

What’s Out: The old GM retains the liability for all current and pending claims. If the incident occurred before July 10th, it is considered a pending claim, even if it has not yet been filed.

Recovery of Unsecured Claims: Unsecured claims in GM are predicted to receive between 10-20 cents on the dollar, several years from now. This is based on projections; there is no guarantee. Cost of administration claims will likely be paid in full for anyone having an accident in the five weeks in between when GM entered and exited bankruptcy, once the old company is liquidated.

For more background on the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies visit www.safetyresearch.net/chrysler-gm-bankruptcy/