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GM faces possible class action lawsuit over 8-speed transmission

General Motors has been hit with a class-action lawsuit from owners who allege the eight-speed automatic transmission found in several rear-wheel-drive Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC models between the 2015 and 2019 model years has a defect that causes the vehicles to hesitate and jerk when accelerating or slowing down. The lawsuit was posted to ClassAction.org and spotted by GM Authority. Problems with GM's Hydra-Matic 8L90 and 8L45 transmissions have been well-documented on Internet forums and via complaints filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, with many reporting damage to their vehicles. The lawsuit was first filed in December in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida but appears to have been transferred recently to New York. Autoblog sought comment from Theodore Leopold, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs. "These transmissions have a common defect," the complaint reads. "Drivers attempting to accelerate or decelerate their cars feel a hesitation, followed by a significant shake, shudder, jerk, clunk, or 'hard shift' when the vehicle's automatic transmission changes gears." The problem also occurs when the vehicles accelerate in a single gear, without shifting, the plaintiffs allege. "Drivers have reported that the shift is sometimes so violent, they feel as though they have been hit by another vehicle." The problem is believed to center on the transmission, torque converter or both. The complaint says it causes undue friction, causing hydraulic systems and gears to function improperly and sometimes leaves metal shavings throughout the transmission, leading to costly repairs and replacement of parts or the entire transmission. It says GM has known about the problems since shortly after it introduced the transmissions, and has issued 13 technical service bulletins, none of which have resolved the problem. GM declined to comment on the lawsuit. The plaintiffs say GM should have warned consumers about the issues and covered repairs under each vehicle's three-year/36,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. They're seeking statewide classes in at least six states: California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Oklahoma and Texas.

Cadillac plans new branding campaign to go with new products

Cadillac's new leader says the GM luxury brand now has "thousands of people" working on its behalf back at its soon-to-be new headquarters in the Detroit suburb of Warren, with a new branding campaign under development and plans to fix longstanding quality issues. Cadillac President Steve Carlisle granted an interview with the Detroit Free Press in which he said he'll unveil a new strategy to redefine the luxury brand, which he's calling a "master brand," in the first quarter of 2019. "Cadillac has its own values — boldness, optimism, innovation, sophistication — that will reflect in the master brand," Carlisle told the outlet. The challenge is "how to bring those to life." He added that Caddy won't be defining itself simply as a viable option to gold-standard Germany luxury cars. "We're targeting customers versus competitors. Cadillac has to have its own persona and not be defined by where other brands are and are not. It has to have its own definition and that's what we're reflecting in our master brand." Carlisle, who was promoted to lead Cadillac in April, put his first stamp on Cadillac last month when the brand announced it will move its headquarters back to Warren, Mich., across the street from GM's massive Tech Center, after more than three years in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood. He said its Cadillac House showroom, a ground-floor space used to display models and stage events with partners, will remain open "for the time being" and that the brand will use what it learned well outside of its Detroit auto-industry bubble to move the brand forward. He'll have his work cut out for him. Cadillac plans to launch a new or redesigned vehicle every six months for the next three years, and Carlisle said he wants the brand to be GM's technology leader, the first to deploy self-driving and electric-vehicle technology of GM's stable of brands. Yet the brand just ranked second-from-last in Consumer Reports' new reliability survey for 2018. Jon Linkov, deputy auto editor for CR, said the brand suffered for widespread complaints about its Cadillac User Experience infotainment system, with owners reporting frequent crashes, frozen screens and problems with voice control. "Most of (the complaints) really ran through the CUE system being a major culprit for Cadillacs," Linkov said. Through September, Cadillac's year-to-date sales had dipped a half a percentage point from the first nine months of 2017 to 113,240 units.

Cadillac ATS sedan is in its last year

Cadillac has just confirmed that the ATS Sedan dies at the end of the 2018 model year. In an e-mail to CarBuzz, spokesman Donny Nordlicht wrote, "Production of the ATS Sedan is ending due to extensive plant upgrades, expansion and re-tooling to prepare for the next generation of Cadillac sedans." The admission confirms several months of deduction based on a document trail put together by The Truth About Cars. Last December, TTAC reported that General Motors didn't list a 2019 Cadillac ATS sedan on VIN documents submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Only the coupe remained, the presumption being that 2018 would be the last year for the sedan. That presumption was bolstered by industry sleuth Bozi Tatarevic's discovery this week that GM hasn't included the ATS sedan in the carmaker's fleet order guide. The death of the four-door ATS won't surprise anyone paying attention to statements from Cadillac or ATS sales figures. Brand then-president Johan de Nysschen strongly hinted last summer that three sedans would bite the dust come 2019, and one would be refreshed. We've seen the gussied-up CT6, so that put the XTS, CTS, and ATS in the funeral home. The XTS would die an unavenged death, while the CTS downsized into the properly midsized CT5 and targeted buyers in the $35,000 to $45,000 range, overlapping with $34,595 ATS sedan pricing by doing so. The ATS would go on hiatus, eventually resurrected as a compact luxury offering possibly called CT3 in coupe form and CT4 as a sedan sometime around 2020. As for the market situation, ATS sales are up 7.3 percent in the U.S. through the end of April this year compared to 2017. However, the ATS sold only 13,100 units in the U.S. in 2017, compared to 21,505 units in 2016 and a high of 38,319 in 2013, its first full year on sale. Assuming new Cadillac president Steve Carlisle stays the predicted course, GM might keep the ATS Coupe as a lure to sporty buyers in the segment until a possible CT5 coupe arrives. Otherwise, Nordlicht's e-mail said "Cadillac's future sedan portfolio will consist of three sedans, positioned in different segments and clearly differentiated by size and price." The 2019 ATS Coupe will stick with its three current engines, the 2.0-liter turbo with 272 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque, the 3.6-liter V6 with 335 hp and 285 lb-ft, and the 3.6-liter twin-turbo V6 in the ATS-V with 464 hp and 445 lb-ft of torque.