Nearly 170,000 owners of the 2016 Chevrolet Traverse, 2016 GMC Acadia and 2016 Buick Enclave may receive compensation for misstated miles per gallon (mpg) stats on window stickers.
GM will announce a plan that will addresses the 1 to 2 mpg difference between the actual fuel economy and stated numbers. Built on the same platform, the Traverse, Acadia, and Enclave trio issues only impact 2016 model years, however, it could extend to more than 2 million vehicles if previous model years are affected.
Now that the windows stickers fixed, GM will resume sales of the three vehicles.
Correct fuel economies for all three of GM's crossovers are 15 mpg city, 22 mpg highway, and 17 mpg combined for all-wheel drive models, and 15 mpg city, 22 mpg highway, 18 mpg combined for front-wheel drive models.
Incorrect window labels stated 17 mpg city, 24 mpg highway, and 19 mpg combined.
On top of the financial losses from compensating owners, a class action was filed in the Eastern District of Michigan's US District Court. GM declined to respond to requests for information from many automotive news websites.
The plaintiff of the lawsuit alleges GM purposefully hid the actual fuel economy, but GM categorized this issue as an 'inadvertent mistake' caused by new "emissions-related hardware" required for emissions testing on new vehicles.
"The fuel economy data from these tests were not captured in calculations made for EPA fuel economy labels...causing 2016 model year fuel economy numbers to be overstated," GM said in a statement.
The error was discovered by GM during window sticker updates for 2017 model year vehicles and swiftly took action by contacting the EPA and halting sales of these vehicles while everything was ironed out.
Source: Automotive News
