GM Recalling 4.3M Vehicles Over Airbag Software Bug

[HardOCP News]

General Motors has announced the recall of 4.3 million vehicles over a software bug that causes airbags to fail to deploy. Better make sure your GM vehicle is not on the list:

General Motors LLC (GM) is recalling certain model year 2015-2017 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD, 3500 HD, Tahoe, Suburban, GMC Sierra 2500 HD and 3500 HD, GMC Yukon, GMC Yukon XL, Cadillac Escalade and Cadillac Escalade ESV vehicles and 2014-2017 Chevrolet Corvette, Silverado 1500, Trax, Caprice Police Pursuit Vehicle, GMC Sierra 1500, Buick Encore, and 2014-2016 Buick Lacrosse, Chevrolet Spark EV and SS vehicles. In the affected vehicles, certain driving conditions may cause the air bag sensing and diagnostic module (SDM) software to activate a diagnostic test. During this test, deployment of the frontal air bags and the seat belt pretensioners would not occur in the event of a crash.

 

[thesmokingman]

Whoa, this on top of the current airbag recall. Airbag fails are on a roll.

 

[NeoNemesis]

Where the hell is their quality control? These recalls seem to be happening on a near weekly basis.

 

[Deleted member 93354]

GM Computer:

...I'm in diagnostics mode.

 

[Deleted member 93354]

Where the hell is their quality control? These recalls seem to be happening on a near weekly basis.

A lot of computers on cars rely on a very very large static data table to look up values of what to do under certain conditions. They do this because they have a predictive nature of how the card should behave that is fine tuned by hand, and sometimes lengthly computational algorithms. For example how should adaptive suspension react to a 15 degree wheel turn at 30 MPH while applying 30% brakes and on rough road? There are so many permutations as to a car's state it's actually mind boggling. When they hit a state where the computer doesn't have a permutation, it sometimes thinks it's an error and invoke diagnostics. For example the Toyota Prius 3rd gen deactivated regenerative braking when the wheel hit potholes when braking due to uncontrolled variations in the electrical feedback during the braking/vertical wheel movement.

Sometimes stuff just isn't predicted by a static lookup table.

 

[NeghVar]

Why all this buggy software? The mechanical version worked fine. If it is not broke, don't fix it

 

[Deleted member 93354]

Why all this buggy software? The mechanical version worked fine. If it is not broke, don't fix it

Because everyone wants traction control, ABS, turn in control, multi stage intelligent air bags, intelligent power assit, keyless entry, GPS, Bluetooth, electronic 6 way power assisted seats the remember the last driver, max fuel economy, power when demanded, and a smooth ride where mechanical versions don't cut it. All solved with software, not hardware.