GM Sued for One Billion Dollars by Charfoos & Christensen

DETROIT, Nov. 14, 2003 -- A national class action lawsuit was filed in Detroit's Federal Court against General Motors by residents of Florida and Michigan, at 3:00 p.m. on Friday, November 14, 2003. Class action plaintiffs Kim and Daniel Powell from Castleberry, Florida and John Lott from Brownstown Township, Michigan, acting on behalf of themselves and all class members, allege that General Motors sold them high-end/expensive trucks, a Yukon X-L 2500 and a Silverado that had such noisy and defective engines that they could not use their trucks and were unable to sell those trucks as any potential buyer would not buy a truck whose engine exhibited such loud "piston slap."

The plaintiffs are represented by Charfoos & Christensen class attorneys J. Douglas Peters and Ann K. Mandt and Michigan Lemon Law attorney Brian Parker.

Between 1999 and the present, General Motors has sold over 800,000 vehicles with defective engines which have excessively low mileage, excessive exhaust emissions and such loud engine clatter (piston slap) that they are unable to effectively use their vehicles and can certainly not sell or trade them for fair value.

"Piston slap" is caused by too much clearance between the pistons and the cylinder walls within the cylinder bore of the engine. Automotive Industry experts claim that "piston slap" engines waste fuel and have significantly higher vehicle emissions due to incomplete combustion, combustion of excessive amounts of lubricating oil and combustion chamber blow-by. Higher levels of fuel consumption and vehicle emissions increase exponentially as the miles increase due to accelerated wear to the internal engine components. GM's own internal Technical Service Bulletins show that these problems predominate in the 3.1, 4.8, 5.3 and 6.0 liter engines. The fuel and oil consumption problems on these vehicles cause them to have levels of emissions one would expect from a vehicle with 200,000 plus miles. Although GM originally promised to fix these defective engines in statements made in December of 2001 and January of 2002, as the number of defective engines grew and subsequently the cost to repair them grew as well, GM changed its tact and decided to call the defect "NORMAL" and not in need of repair.

The damages claim in this case will probably exceed one billion dollars and may adversely effect General Motors' reputation, market share and bottom line.