General Motors announce new recall of more than 1.3 million vehicles

General Motors announced on Monday that it is announcing a recall of more than 1.3 million vehicles which may experience sudden loss of electric power steering.

This is second time that GM is recalling in a year as earlier 2.6 million vehicles were recalled due to ignition-switch problems which were linked to 13 deaths. The new recall GM models include HHRs and Cobalts, Chevy Malibus, Saturn Auras, IONs and Pontiac G6s from 2004 to 2010 model years.

General Motors will replace the power-steering motors, motor-control units, , steering columns or a combination depending on the vehicle for free of charge. Earlier GM has been criticized for not handling well the ignition-switch problem which has been first learned by the company in 2001 itself.

A hearing is being held on Tuesday with GM CEO Mary Barra by a congressional subcommittee regarding the ignition recall.

Chief auto-safety regulator of government, David Friedman will argue that the “critical information” by GM would have helped the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration identify the ignition defect sooner.

Government investigators are also expected to be asked by house members on why they didn’t spot a safety-defect trend earlier looking at GM-related data.

Friedman is expected to say that NHTSA did not find sufficient evidence of a possible safety-defect trend warranting for a formal investigation.