Chrysler & GM: What Happens if Your Car Blows Up?

I know I'll never forget that horrible sight,
I guess I found out for myself that everyone was right.
Won't come back from Dead Man's Curve.

-Jan and Dean

Dead Man's Curve was a song about hot rod drivers. Not all accidents are caused by driver error. Some cars are not designed or manufactured properly.

Ford Pinto's had exploding gas tanks. Over the years there have been a several cars with serious defects. People have died or been severely injured.

If you are driving a defective Chrysler, the bankruptcy courts have two words for you:

Drop Dead.

It looks like the courts is going to tell General Motors drivers the same thing.

I have a friend who is paralyzed for life because of a defective seat belt. Her medical bills are well over $100,000 a year. Another friend had three family members die because of a faulty gas tank.

The accidents happened several years ago. They went to court and won.

If it happened today, they wouldn't receive a penny.

We don't know how many defective cars are on the road. You don't know if you seat belt is defective unless you have been in an accident. Many times, like in the Ford Pinto case, it takes
years to figure out the problem.

I've also wondered if companies do what Ed Norton's character in Fight Club did: quietly pay claims instead of fixing car defects.

If Chrysler had been using Norton's business style, they just won the lottery. They can get out of billions of dollars in damages.

If your seat belt doesn't work on your Chrysler, you are out of luck. If your Jeep rolls over and your are paralyzed, you are out of luck too.

It looks like those driving GM cars are going to suffer a similar fate.

There are a lot of potential claims on the road.

According to a Securities and Exchange Commission Filing, General Motors paid $1.1 billion in products liability claims in 2007 and $921 million in 2008.

Chrysler didn't go out of business. It will be owned by Fiat. Somehow Fiat wiggled out responsibility for Chrysler's actions. The United States government gave its blessing to the deal.

General Motors is owned by the taxpayers of the United States of America.

As part owner of the new General Motors, I'm unhappy about putting the screws to injured people.

Chrysler and General Motors have deluded us into bailing them out with the pretense that they will be making cars that we want to buy.

How many people are going to buy a Chrysler or GM car that doesn't own up to its errors? They can buy a Ford, Toyota or Honda whose company will pay when they make a mistake.

Hyundai has been helped by a marketing campaign which allows someone to return the car if they lose their job.

Hyundai has another edge now. If the car blows up, they will compensate the victims.

You can't say that about a Chrysler or a Buick.

We've spent billions paying for the mistakes that GM and Chrysler executives have made.

If a GM or Chrysler automobile maims or kills someone, we need to pay for those mistakes too.

Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is the founder of McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement consulting firm, in Richmond, Kentucky.

He is the author of Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You When The Lottery. You can write to Don at [e-mail] or read his award winning, syndicated column at www.donmcnay.com. He is a frequent guest on television and radio talk shows.

McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table.

Comments

[Nancyok]

Don...i have to say this piece is a bit sensationalistic for you.....creating a fear that has little basis in reality.....a bit Republican of you :)
The fact is that Chrysler has no history of this kind of dramatic failure and this article implies that these products are unsafe when they aren't. I do love my minivan and miss my pre-kid crossfire convertible and jeep...have never had a day's trouble with a Chrysler. I'm much more concerned with the millions in jobs that we stand to lose that some fabricated risk that has no real basis in history.
It's kind of like Sharks. Sharks kill about 3 people a decade and we kill about 6 million sharks in the last decade but they get the bad rap. The auto industry and subsequently the consumer is on the hook for billions in frivolous law suits when irresponsible people and bad lawyers go after the deep pockets in cases where the manufacturer had nothing to do with the incident. The big 3 alone have had to pay billions in settlement dollars and legal costs for law suits that have no basis....now that's a story. The auto industry is villified over not building green but consumers still aren't buying them.

[DustyRebel]

This story just gets worse and worse. Millions of Americans who drive Chrysler and GM vehicles are currently at risk and these companies need to be held accountable. ThePopTort has some more info on this here: http://www.thepoptort.com/2009/06/driving-chrysler-or-gm-cars-better-beware-sell-it-now.html

[BostonSMS]

Don, thanks for the heads up. Another sad commentary on American business practices. I'm still driving my nine year old Honda and lovin' it.

[steveherb]

FORD DOES NOT PAY! Don you need to look at this...

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/09/ford_fires_continue.html

My 2001 F-150 had the cruise control fixed and it still caught on fire while driving. When I complained Ford acted as if I was the first person ever. They also knew no lawyer would take my case since there was no personal injury. I had to settle for small claims. I down loaded every piece of evidence convincing the judge but he winded up saying, "I was taking on the big guys" So he dismissed the case as lack of evidence. I believe he just want to be passive and not be known as the first judge to side against Ford.
Lack of evidence? The truck burnt to the ground. I had it junked. Fords response was by doing that I just sold the vehicle by signing it over to the junk yard.

My opionion is Ford could care less if it was your grandmother or your baby girl who died in the fire. They will do anything and everything to invest in their own lawyers to fight you against their own defects.
Now I'd much rather own a Chrysler or GM. You can still sue a company even after they've filed bankruptcy.
Don I really hope you take the time out to look at and read the stories at Consumeraffairs.com/Ford Fires. You many have to write a retraction to this article.

[classicalgeek]

"Hyundai has another edge now. If the car blows up, they will compensate the victims."

I have owned German, American and Japanese cars in the past. When my 1990 Nissan Sentra caught fire as I was driving it this past January, I bid it a fond farewell and went off to research which car to buy next. I looked for safety, fuel economy, and price. The safest car on the road was a Hyundai Elantra SE (with electronic stability control and 4- and 5-star crash ratings, and eight airbags). It gets 30.6 combined mpg (largely city), it's huge on the inside (shade of the TARDIS) and now there's another reason to love it. A bargain for $15,395!

[Don McNay - Huffpost Blogger]

The point is simple. If you are injured in a product liability claim against Toyota or Ford (like the cases against Ford when the Pinto's were ill designed, blowing up and killing people) you will get your day in court and a chance for proper compensation.

If you are driving a Chrysler product (and probably a GM product) you will get zero

If someone runs a stop sign, runs into your car and maims you, their insurance company will pay your claim. The driver was at fault and
The car manufacturer would have nothing to do with it.

[ORSunshine]

I'm not sure I'm on the same page. People get hurt in auto accidents - there's a risk when you get in a car, there just is. Unreasonable sums of money can be won by victims, and to have a "structured settlement consultant" write about how shameful it is that companies will get out of these lawsuits seems a bit interesting to me...