This week General Motors has issued an immediate stop-sale order on six models across multiple brands. The cars affected are as follows: Buick Encore GX, Cadillac CT4, CT5, XT4, and Chevrolet Trailblazer and Corvette. GM has notified the NHTSA about an upcoming safety recall for these vehicles, which stems from a sensor in the brake booster system.
According to GM, “material used in a sensor connection in the electronic brake boost system in these vehicles may have been contaminated during the material supplier’s production process. Contamination of this material may cause an interruption of communication between the sensor and the brake boost system under certain conditions.”
It’s possible that under certain circumstances you will lose your electronic brake boost assist. Under normal driving circumstances, that’s probably not such a big deal. A light will illuminate on your dashboard, the brakes get a harder to press but hopefully not too hard, you pull over and get the car towed to the shop. If you’re hauling arse in your Corvette Stingray Z51 and you suddenly lose brake assist to your massive Brembos as you try to slow for a hairpin corner in the canyons of Southern California, you may end up sliding yourself off a cliff into one of the state’s many semi-permanent wildfires.
The unfortunate news is that GM hasn’t yet resolved the issue and there is currently not a remedy for this product failure. The notice sent to the NHTSA notes that “when a remedy is available and/or sufficient quantity of parts are available, the recall bulletin will be released, and dealers can begin repairing vehicles.”
If you want to see if your Corvette is affected by this issue, you can visit my.gm.com/recalls and input your VIN to search for any outstanding repairs needed. In the meantime, perhaps you shouldn’t drive a car with a potentially flawed brake system? That seems like one of the more important systems in a car. Just… be careful.