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Airbag Failures Lead to Class Action Lawsuit Against GM Canada

by Guillaume Rivard
Photo: General Motors of Canada Ltd.

A class action lawsuit against General Motors of Canada has been filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia by Garcha & Company on behalf of William Arthur Baldridge, who purchased a Chevrolet Silverado 2500 in April 2005.

The class action, which includes all consumers in Canada except the Province of Quebec, alleges multiple vehicles are equipped with defective airbag control units that cause failures of the airbags and seat belt pretensioners.

According to CarComplaints.com, the affected models span two decades and the list is quite long, including:

Various Isuzu models are listed in the class action, as well.

Photo: Alain Morin

GM allegedly calibrated the airbag control unit to prevent deployment of the airbags and pretensioners 45 milliseconds after a crash has begun, even though the typical "crash duration" of a frontal vehicle-to-barrier collision is about 80-150 milliseconds and multiple impacts can occur in a single accident.

The lawsuit claims GM is aware of the dangers but continues to pretend the vehicles are safe. The automaker allegedly concealed the defects to avoid the cost of a recall.

An almost identical lawsuit against GM was filed in New Jersey last month, alleging affected vehicles do not deploy the airbags in a timely manner in the event of a crash. The U.S. federal government is said to have received more than 800 complaints of airbag failures in front-end crashes involving GM vehicles dating back to 1999.

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