General Motors Hid Braking System Defect in Cadillac, Chevy, GMC Vehicle Models, Class Action Alleges

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General Motors has been hit with a proposed class action filed by two California residents who claim thousands of GM vehicles are equipped with defective braking systems. According to the 96-page lawsuit, GM sold, leased and continues to sell the affected vehicles despite its awareness of the issue “since at least 2014,” which the case argues amounts to the automaker choosing “financial gain at the expense of consumer safety.” 

The complaint alleges the following vehicle models (class vehicles) are equipped with faulty braking systems: 

Per the suit, the braking systems in the above vehicle models are defectively designed in that they’re prone to “sudden and unexpected loss of vacuum in the brake booster,” which may call for the replacement of the brake booster and/or the vehicle’s vacuum pump. When a vehicle’s brake system loses its vacuum, the case explains, the subsequent brake booster failure can cause a brake pedal to “become[] hard” and require much more force from the driver in order to slow the car down. 

According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs, a husband and wife, purchased a new 2017 Chevy Suburban at a franchised GM dealership in Riverside County in January 2017. The suit says the plaintiffs brought their truck in for maintenance in April of that year to address an engine oil leak for which the vehicle’s vacuum pump needed to be replaced. Roughly a year later, the lawsuit says, one of the plaintiffs was driving when she experienced apparent brake failure. The case claims the woman “pressed her brake pedal but the pedal became hard and prevented her from stopping her vehicle, resulting in a collision with the vehicle in front of her.”

The plaintiffs informed GM of the problem, the suit continues, and the defendant went so far as to send an investigator to the plaintiffs’ home to extract electronic data from the truck. GM stopped short, however, as its investigators allegedly “refused to do any kind of field testing of the vehicle or otherwise evaluate it for safety under driving conditions.”

“Instead, GM attempted to induce [the plaintiffs] into signing a release for any claims of liability against GM or its franchised dealerships, including a promise of confidentiality, in exchange for the cost of repair to the Suburban’s front bumper,” the lawsuit reads.