GM recalls an additional 2.7 million vehicles, reveals more sins of the past

Nearly four months after first revealing it neglected safety problems in millions of older models, General Motors announced today another massive batch of recalls — five in total, covering eight models built over a decade and affecting 2.7 million vehicles. While GM says none of the safety issues it's fixing today have lead to deaths, some had been the source of injuries and hundreds of complaints — and in one case, GM had issued a partial fix and recall already, raising new questions about why it waited several years to repair all cars affected.

So far this year, GM has recalled more than 11 million cars and trucks in 24 different campaigns, part of a shakeout stemming from the ignition defects linked to at least 13 deaths and years of foot-dragging by the company. The automaker said today's recalls would add $200 million to the $1.3 billion it spent fixing old vehicles in the first quarter.

The bulk of those affected by today's recalls: 2.4 million 2004-2012 Chevrolet Malibus, 2004-2007 Chevrolet Malibu Maxxes, 2005-2010 Pontiac G6s and 2007-2010 Saturn Auras. GM says a bad control module could cause the tail lights to either fail to turn on when the brakes are applied or turn on by themselves; the same issue could also cause problems with "cruise control, traction control, electronic stability control and panic braking assist."

It's a problem that had generated more than 1,000 complaints from owners and reports of three injuries from crashes. GM had even recalled about 8,000 Pontiac G5s for the problem back in January 2009 — and yet, also told dealers how to fix the problem in all other affected models without a recall. After receiving more than 300 complaints on its own in the years since, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a new investigation into the problem last year.