In late November, General Motors announced a recall of thousands of Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks. According to the recall details, the trucks' tailgates might randomly open while they are parked. Below we'll talk more about the possible risks of that defect, why the recall is important, and what people affected by it can do.
How Big Is the Recall?
According to recall campaign #24V894000 from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), just over 132,000 pickups (66,669 Silverados and 65,368 Sierras to be exact) may be affected by this recall. The following models are mentioned in the NHTSA documentation:
- 2024 Chevrolet Silverado HD 2500 and 3500
- 2024 GMC Sierra HD 2500 and 3500
The affected trucks were reportedly built between Aug. 1, 2023, and March 8, 2024, a span of just over 7 months.
What's Wrong with the Silverado and Sierra Tailgates?
All the pickup trucks listed in the recall have power-unlatching tailgates, meaning that the tailgate's locking mechanism is controlled electronically like the rest of its doors. The problem arises when water seeps into the tailgate and causes a short circuit in the gate-release switch. According to the recall, that could lead to the tailgate dropping open unexpectedly when the pickups are in Park.
Despite getting around 235 complaints about the tailgate dropping open while a truck is in motion, General Motors maintains that only parked pickups experience the issue. They and the NHTSA allege the complaints are probably from people who drove without realizing their tailgates fell open while they were parked.
What Harm Could a Tailgate Defect Cause?
According to official reports nobody has been hurt by this issue so far, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. Consider the cargo many heavy-duty pickups haul around every day: Anything from furniture or mattresses to toolboxes and industrial equipment might be rattling around in the truck's bed. If the items aren't fully secured, then an open tailgate gives them ample opportunity to tumble out and cause chaos on the road.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, if a 20-pound object falls off a truck at 55 miles per hour then it has the striking force of roughly 1,000 pounds. Anyone unlucky enough to get struck by that could receive anything from major vehicle damage to grievous or fatal bodily injury. Even if nobody is hit as it falls, though, it still creates a dangerous obstacle for traffic and there may be accidents as people swerve to avoid it.
I Have One of These Trucks, What Should I Do about the Recall?
Currently General Motors says that people with the recalled trucks should manually shut and latch their tailgates to prevent them from falling open, but that's only a stopgap measure until the company is ready to do something more permanent. Their proposed fix is to replace the pickups' exterior touch pad switch assemblies with new ones that have water-resistant coating, which should hopefully prevent any further shorts in the system.
GM plans on sending out owner recall notifications starting in mid-January. Anyone who receives a letter or e-mail about the vehicle defect should contact their local GM/Chevy dealer for more information.
Why Does This GM Recall Matter?
People may not see the urgency behind this or other recalls with no reported injuries. They're actually more important than some might realize.
First of all, there's the preventative aspect of a recall. Think about the issues we mentioned above, where pickup drivers unwittingly spill cargo into the path of other motorists. I'm not saying that's constantly happening all the time; the point is that the conditions to let it happen shouldn't exist in the first place. General Motors must agree, or they wouldn't be calling in a hundred thousand-plus vehicles for preventative maintenance. If they can keep the injuries or deaths caused by their defective part at a nice tidy zero, that's best for everybody.
That brings me to the other reason this recall is important: It may shed new light on old accidents. GM may not have any confirmed reports of the tailgate defect causing harm, but how many people were injured by a GM or Chevy pickup's falling cargo since the first faulty one rolled off the line? Were the recalled tailgates responsible for any of those incidents, and would anyone have realized it at the time? People may want to review the details of their crashes in light of this new information.
What Does All This Mean?
If you take away little else here, remember this: The law says that manufacturers have a responsibility to make products that won't hurt people when used correctly. Some companies just make honest design or assembly mistakes, others try to cut corners on materials or quality control, but whatever the reason faulty products sometimes enter the market.
Most major automakers, General Motors among them, occasionally cross that line and release anywhere from a few hundred to several million vehicles with one or more serious flaws. A busted tailgate might not seem like that much next to, say, exploding airbags or breakaway steering wheels, but for all the reasons explored above it can be a very serious issue.
Recalls are one of the main ways a company can acknowledge their mistakes and try to fix them, but sometimes those are too little and too late. If careful investigation shows that better attention to detail at the manufacturing level could have kept someone from getting hurt or killed, it's only right that the company be held accountable for its part in that. Ensuring they pay the price takes some doing, but it's an important part of keeping industries honest—and of helping the people harmed by their errors.