April 19, 2024
A proposed class of car buyers has filed a new lawsuit alleging that General Motors LLC knowingly sold vehicles with defective transmissions, this one involving state law claims not included in a separate action that achieved class certification last year.
In a complaint filed in Michigan federal court Wednesday, the car buyers, led by Cole Ulrich, said a combination of two defects causes 2015-2019 vehicles equipped with GM’s eight-speed transmission system to lurch, shudder and experience delays in acceleration and deceleration on the road.
According to the complaint, GM knew about the issue and even developed a way to fix it in 2018 through a transmission flush, but the company made a business decision not to recall the 2 million affected vehicles and instead limit the flush to unsold Cadillacs and vehicles in certain states it expected customers would complain within the warranty.
The automaker never told existing customers about the issue, and only addressed it if a customer came in and complained about the problem within the warranty, according to the suit, so many vehicle owners had to pay out of pocket for the repairs.
“GM has breached the trust of millions of Americans by selling defective eight-speed transmission vehicles which they knew to be defective for years, putting profit first and safety last,” Ted Leopold of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, representing the car buyers, said in a statement Wednesday. “GM marketed and sold these eight-speed automatic transmission vehicles as having ‘world-class performance,’ lightning-fast and smooth shifting, along with improved fuel efficiency, and instead sold defective vehicles.”
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The car buyers are represented by attorneys with Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, Gordon & Partners PA and Berger Montague PC, among others.