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Now there are a few problems with this article, like implying that the H2 is in any way related to the Humvee military truck.
Now there are a few problems with this article, like implying that the H2 is in any way related to the Humvee military truck.
A wheel fell off a Hummer H2 being test-driven by Bee auto editor Mark Glover in 2002. Sacramento Bee file, 2002/Jay Mather
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Iris Ziroli's new beast seemed invincible: It could haul a trailer with 6,700 pounds of cargo, climb slopes at a 60-degree angle and zoom through water 20 inches deep without flinching. Or at least, that's what the pamphlets from her Southern California Hummer dealer promised.
That's why the Murrieta real estate agent was so bewildered when the front end of her pewter-colored Hummer H2 sport-utility vehicle collapsed in February 2004, not during a wild off-road trek, but after she bumped a post in a Carl's Jr. drive-through.
When it hit the ground, the undercarriage of her vehicle screeched almost as loudly as her 6-month-old daughter riding in a car seat.
"I thought I was so safe because the H2 is so huge and strong," Ziroli said. "The way that Hummer fell apart in that drive-through was uncalled for."
Two years later, federal highway safety investigators are reviewing Ziroli's case and 25 complaints like it about Hummer H2s, according to government documents. Their review includes 20 cases involving 2003 model year vehicles, like Ziroli's.
Engineers at the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration are studying how a part called a steering knuckle fractured or failed in the incidents, causing H2 suspensions to collapse or their wheels to separate.
General Motors denies there is a safety problem with the metal part, which holds the steering arms in place near the front tires. It says that knuckle-related collapses and wheel separation incidents are a consequence -- not a cause -- of H2 crashes and collisions.
Part changed in 2003
But in June 2003, the automaker changed the steering knuckle part starting with model year 2004. The older part remains in the 47,900 model year 2003s.
The change was made not because there was a problem with the part, according to GM product safety spokesman Alan Adler, but because GM always wants to "improve its products."
NHTSA engineers also have gathered data about 61 steering knuckle failures on three-quarter-ton GM Suburban and Avalanche pickup trucks that used the same part, according to documents the company submitted to the government as part of the safety probe.
Such probes can be precursors to recalls. NHTSA investigator Peter Kivett said he is trying to work with GM to pinpoint the cause of the failures.
"We re building a case, but GM is pushing back pretty hard," Kivett said.
A smaller, more luxurious version of the military Humvee, the H2s went on sale in late 2002 and quickly became beloved to a select group of affluent urban owners. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used to own one.
Assembled at a plant in Indiana, their base price is $53,800. More than 113,000 have been sold.
Gay Kent, GM's product investigation director, declined an interview request. In a written reply to NHTSA investigators, Kent argued that the volume of the H2 steering knuckle failures and wheel separations was "extremely low."
"Steering knuckles do not fracture unless they are overloaded in an impact," her report states.
That's not the way Jonathan Barksdale of Chester, Pa., remembers it. Barksdale bought an H2 from a Delaware dealer for $64,000 on Dec. 3, 2003.
Eight days later, with 381 miles on his odometer, according to documents filed in the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia County, "suddenly and without warning, the right front wheel of the vehicle flew off."
Then there was Arsen Khachatryan, a South Carolina man who complained to the NHTSA's safety hotline in July 2004 that he and his brother "nearly died" in their mother's 2004 H2.
His driver's side front wheel "broke free" at 35 mph and the vehicle became a moving tripod, swerving into oncoming traffic, Khachatryan reported. He hit the brakes -- to no avail.
"The brakes were still attached to the wheel which I could see was behind us from the side-view mirror," he wrote.
The brothers crashed into a ditch, unhurt. What troubled Khachatryan most was that his own mother, Anahit Khachatryan, didn't believe him when he told her what happened.
"It was awful," Anahit Khachatryan told The Bee. "It had less than 1,000 miles on it."
Since April, the NHTSA's Kivett has collected such statements from H2 owners and drivers, along with photographs of their accidents.
Bee editor files first report
Mark Glover, The Bee's auto editor, was the first person to report an H2 wheel separation to the federal government.
A test drive of a yellow 2003 H2 for his column ended abruptly when the vehicle veered suddenly to the left and crashed in The Bee's parking lot. Photos by a Bee photographer show a fractured steering knuckle, a scraped light pole and a wheel 15 feet away.
Glover says it was his only crash during a test drive since taking the job of reviewing cars in 2000. It still amazes him. "There was a sharp, loud noise and the vehicle was on its nose," he said.
Art Spinella, an automobile industry analyst in Oregon, speculated that GM officials didn't discover a problem earlier due to insufficient road testing.
"It's one of these things that didn't turn up initially because there was not enough miles of road testing," he said. "It's not just GM, it's all the companies."
Consumers expect H2s to be tough because of marketing, Spinella said, even if only 18 percent of them drive off-road.
"If you say you've made it tough enough to go off-roading, it better be," Spinella said.
Kent, the GM product investigation director, said the H2 is plenty tough and its components have all undergone extensive strength and durability testing, according to a 29-page report that she submitted to the NHTSA on March 31.
In 13 cases where GM said it had enough physical evidence to determine the exact causes of H2 crashes, Kent wrote, all the vehicles were moving -- with all four wheels attached -- when they hit a fixed or heavy obstacle, including trees, cars and an embankment.
Kent said hits can deliver a force of up to 10,000 pounds to the steering knuckle on the 6,400-pound H2, overloading the part and causing it to fail.
A recurring issue is whether H2 owners had a collision before or after their steering knuckles failed. Some admit hitting small bumps before, others say they hit nothing. Still others are unsure which came first, the hit or the wheel separation.
We hit nothing, drivers say
Cape Cod, Mass., homebuilder Ryan Spenlinhauer said a wheel on his green 2003 H2 collapsed without warning as he left his driveway, causing it to hit a tree, government documents show.
"It's not a situation you expect in a Hummer," he said.
Spenlinhauer told The Bee he hit the tree after his wheel fell off, though he said GM officials suggested he hit something before.
Ziroli, the Murrieta real estate agent, admits her H2 tire bumped and "grabbed" a post in the drive-through.
Citing safety concerns, Ziroli and Spenlinhauer subsequently sold their Hummers.
Like Spenlinhauer, Barksdale -- who lost a wheel after owning his H2 for eight days -- insisted he hit nothing. He pressed his dealer to pay for repairs under warranty. The dealer balked, court documents state.
Barksdale sued the dealer and GM in June 2004 under Delaware's Automobile Lemon Law, alleging his H2 was unreliable and unsafe.
GM suggested Barksdale hit something, court documents show. So Barksdale's lawyer, Michael Power, hired automobile claims expert Charlie Barone, who found no evidence of a collision, according to his inspection report filed in court.
Rather, Barone stated that a knuckle failure after only 381 miles driven pointed to an undetected manufacturing defect "just waiting to happen."
Lawyer: Built to be tough
Besides, whether Barksdale's H2 hit something was irrelevant, Barone added. "A Hummer H2 is supposed to be able to withstand any hazard on a reasonably paved road, to say nothing of off-road hazards," his report said.
GM settled with Barksdale in fall 2005, buying his H2 back for what he paid less what his insurer paid to fix it, Power said. Anahit Khachatryan said that after she hired a lawyer and threatened a similar suit, GM also took back her red H2 and refunded her payments.
Adler, the GM product safety spokesman, declined to discuss specific cases The Bee unearthed in databases obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Nobody has died in H2 steering knuckle accidents, Adler said, but four people had minor injuries. Six more people were hurt in GM truck incidents involving the steering knuckle, he said.
New Jersey department store manager Mary Kim was knocked out when her head hit the steering wheel of her 2003 H2 and the right front tire fell off during a low-speed left turn in January 2005, according to documents GM submitted to the NHTSA.
James Kim, Mary's husband, told The Bee that investigators for GM later visited them and said his wife went up on the curb and hit a lamppost. She remembers nothing about the accident, but James said he visited the site and saw no damaged lamppost.
A GM customer service database entry about their complaint makes no mention of an impact.
"Even if my wife hit the curb, the wheel shouldn't cave in like that," said James Kim.
No problems, GM says
Kent, of GM, said in her report that the automaker found no problems through its own probe of the knuckle failures that included design checks, forensic evaluations of failed parts, and a part performance study under extreme abuse conditions.
"The subject vehicles and components are neither defective, nor do they present an unreasonable risk of crashes or injuries resulting from crashes," she wrote.
Kent also turned over data showing that 456 GM truck owners made steering knuckle- related claims under warranties for trucks with model years 1996 to 2005.
Kent's report emphasized, though, that H2s "differ significantly" from GM trucks.
"The H2 has larger tires that extend farther from the side of the vehicle and has no body panels or energy-absorbing bumper in front of the wheels," she wrote. "These distinctions, a necessary feature for off-road use, mean that impacts to the far left or right side of the vehicle can transmit forces directly to the tire, forces which are then reacted to by the steering and suspension components."
That doesn't satisfy James Kim, who said, "The H2's supposedly superstrong and made for off-roading."
However, Adler, the GM spokesman, said the H2 is a rugged vehicle with excellent off-roading abilities, but it remains manmade.
"We're not trying to minimize this, but we have never claimed it is invincible, nor do we portray it crashing into another vehicle or obstacle in any advertising," Adler said. "If energy levels in a crash are sufficient, any vehicle can be disabled."
