Congress: GM Twice Failed to Fix Defect

A new memo from the House subcommittee investigating the General Motors recalls says GM discussed two separate fixes for an ignition-switch defect but canceled them without taking action.

The memo was released Sunday, ahead of the subcommittee’s Tuesday hearing on GM’s recall of 2.6 million small cars for the ignition-switch defect, which has been linked to 13 deaths.

According to the memo, GM engineers met early in 2005 to consider making changes to the ignition switch after reports it was moving out of position and causing cars to stall. But an engineer said the switch was “very fragile” and advised against changes, which were later canceled because they would take too long and cost too much.

Later that year, GM also approved but then canceled a change to the key design.