Late last week General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) told its dealers to stop selling nearly 60,000 large crossover sport utility vehicles (SUVs) until the company could replace incorrect mileage labels with corrected versions. That sales ban was lifted this week and now GM is trying to figure out a way to compensate buyers of nearly 170,000 of the vehicles that were sold with the incorrect labels.
The vehicles involved are the Chevy Traverse, GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave. The incorrect stickers misstate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fuel economy ratings by 1 to 2 mpg.
A report at Automotive News said the GM is expected to announce a plan to customers and dealers within a week.
A complaint has already been filed in the federal district court for eastern Michigan alleging that GM hid the real fuel economy values for the vehicles and that customers consequently overpaid for them. A similar lawsuit filed against Hyundai and Kia in 2012 resulted in a settlement of $395 million for some 900,000 vehicles sold with inflated fuel economy ratings.
GM told Automotive News that the 2016 models were equipped with new emissions-related hardware that required new emissions tests for those vehicles. GM said:
The fuel economy data from these tests were not captured in calculations made for EPA fuel economy labels … causing 2016 model year fuel economy numbers to be overstated.
The error was discovered by GM engineers who were preparing new labels for 2017 models and was reported quickly to the EPA.
The incorrect labels list the vehicle’s fuel economy ratings as 17 city, 24 highway and 19 combined. The correct labels for all three models with all-wheel drive give fuel economy ratings of 15 city, 22 highway and 17 combined. Labels on front-wheel drive models were also incorrect and are being replaced. The correct rating for these models is 15 city, 22 highway 18 combined.
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