US Investigates GM's Saturn Ion for Steering Issue

Although it's no longer an active company, Saturn is periodically brought in the spotlights due to a number of complaints regarding certain parts of the car. Today it's the turn of the Ion's steering system that's apparently the main cause for no less than 11 crashes and four injuries that happened recently in the United States.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that it has already received 633 complaints regarding the loss of power steering so, together with General Motors, it has started an investigation on the matter.

A report issued by Bloomberg notes that there are around 384,000 vehicles affected by the steering problem, all of them designed for model years 2004 to 2007. General Motors hasn't provided too many details, but confirmed that those who might be affected by the problem have already been informed to contact the closest service center of the company for a check.

"Customers who have those vehicles have been notified," said Alan Adler, a spokesman for GM, according to the aforementioned source. "And if they have loss of power-steering assist, they can go to dealers and have that repaired."

An interesting fact is that the part that could be responsible for the loss of power steering could be the same one that forced General Motors to recall 1.3 million Chevrolet Cobalts a few months ago because they were affected by a similar problem. The part is manufactured by Jtekt Corporation, partially-owned by Toyota and, although nobody knows for sure if that's indeed the problem, GM's spokesman said that part is indeed among the ones under investigation.