Lawsuit Against GM Alleges Issues With 8-Speed

May 11, 2022

A group of customers are filing a class action lawsuit against the automaker, claiming that issues with their 8-speed automatic transmissions have caused safety hazards. 

May 11, 2022—A class action lawsuit has been filed against General Motors.

According to Car Complaints, the lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan by a group of customers and relates to 2019 to 2022 models of Chevy, GMC and Cadillac vehicles purchased after March 1, 2019. 

The lawsuit alleges that the Hydra-Matic 8-speed 8L45 and 8L90 automatic transmissions in the affected vehicles jerk, surge, lurch and hesitate. These issues can lead to a safety hazard that affects the vehicle's ability to accelerate and decelerate. 

Car Complaints lists the following vehicles, developed from customer complaints: 2019-2022 Chevrolet Camaro, 2019-2022 Chevrolet Colorado, 2019-2022 Chevrolet Silverado, 2019 Chevrolet Corvette, 2019 Cadillac ATS, 2019 Cadillac ATS-V, 2019 Cadillac CTS, 2019 Cadillac CT6, 2019 Cadillac CTS-V, 2019-2022 GMC Canyon and 2019-2022 GMC Sierra

The lawsuit also claims that GM is not able to fix these issues with the 8-speed and that a planned redesign in 2023 models would help. Plaintiffs believe that GM has known about these problems since 2013 but has not admitted it. 

Additionally, the lawsuit states that GM's warranty covers all vehicle defects aside from slight noises, vibrations and other normal characteristics that occur due to materials or workmanship. 

Plaintiffs say that the 8-speed transmission issues do not fall into the excluded categories, and when they bring their vehicles in for repair at a dealership they have been told that the transmissions are working as normal. 

The lawsuit goes on to claim that GM knows that dealers cannot help the situation, and allegedly a technical service bulletin from August 2020 told dealer technicians that replacing the transmission or its components will not improve the issues. 

GM has not recalled these vehicles, so says the lawsuit, even though plaintiffs say that they have overpaid for defective vehicles.