Test-driving GM's recalled ignitions, Costanza style

By now you’ve probably heard of GM’s ignition-recall debacle regardless of whether you drive a GM car. At this point, GM’s recalled 1,367,146 cars that might’ve had a faulty ignition, plus another 824,000 newer cars that could’ve received the bogus part during a repair. The company acknowledges that the problem is linked to 31 crashes and at least 13 fatalities. So if you drive one of those 2.2 million cars awaiting a new ignition, the obvious question becomes: Is my car a deathtrap? I decided to find out by testing one of the afflicted models, a 2007 Saturn Sky Red Line.

The ignition recall involves GM’s small cars — Chevy Cobalt, Chevy HHR, Saturn Sky, Saturn Ion and any Pontiac versions thereof. If you drive one of these cars, you probably have one that’s subject to the recall. GM’s claim is that not all of the ignition switches are bad, but since it’d be infeasible to find the bum ones amongst 2.2 million cars, they’re just replacing them all.

According to GM, the company issued the recall, “because the ignition switch torque performance may not meet GM specifications. If the torque performance is not to specification, and the key ring is carrying added weight or the vehicle goes off road or experiences some other jarring event, the ignition switch may inadvertently be moved out of the ‘run’ position.” Compounding the problem, if the car’s not running then the airbags might not deploy.