01
Substantial Defect
One that impairs the use, value or safety of the vehicle. Stalling, brake failure, steering and persistent electrical faults qualify. A rattle generally does not.
By Manufacturer
GENERAL MOTORS LEMON LAW.
General Motors is not a badge. It is the manufacturer on every Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac recall — and in 2025 it filed 27 campaigns covering 998,260 vehicles under that one name.
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Bad VehicleGeneral Motors claims.
EXPLORE ↓One Manufacturer, Four Badges
Four facts decide the claim. The badge is not one of them.
Your window sticker says Chevrolet, GMC, Buick or Cadillac. Your recall record, your warrantor and the defendant in any claim all say General Motors, LLC.
02
Repair Attempts
Florida looks for three attempts at the same defect. New York looks for four. Recall work and visits that found nothing both count.
03
Days Out of Service
Thirty cumulative days in Florida and in New York. Cumulative, not consecutive, and the days count whether or not anything was fixed.
04
Coverage Window
The defect has to be reported while the vehicle is inside the warranty or rights period. When it was reported matters more than today's date.
General Motors is a parent company, and NHTSA files every US campaign under the manufacturer name General Motors, LLC. That is why the agency publishes group totals but no per-badge totals, and why searching "Chevrolet recall" or "Buick recall" turns up so little. The record exists — it is filed under the parent.
Platform sharing is the defining feature for claims. The 6.2L L87 V8 campaign covered 597,571 vehicles across Chevrolet, GMC and Cadillac at once. The brake-warning campaign covered 449,671 across the same three. The August 2026 camera campaign covered 306,511 Chevrolets and Buicks. One defect, several badges, one manufacturer.
Recall repairs count as repair attempts. GM had logged 28,102 L87 engine failure reports before filing that recall, and in August 2026 NHTSA opened Engineering Analysis EA26-005 covering 997,743 vehicles because the remedy may not hold. A repair that did not fix the fault is still an attempt.
Jonathan D. Schwartz has +25 years of experience handling Lemon Law and warranty matters, including claims against General Motors. Bad Vehicle offers a free case evaluation, direct access to the attorney handling the claim, and no upfront legal fee to begin pursuing an eligible case.
Recall or Claim
A recall says GM knows. A claim says they were given the chance to fix it.
A recall is the manufacturer acknowledging that a defect exists across a population of vehicles and offering a remedy. It is a public admission of the fault pattern, which makes it useful evidence. What it is not is a Lemon Law claim.
The claim arises from what happened to your vehicle: the defect was reported, the dealership was given a reasonable number of attempts to repair it, and it is still there. A GM recall notice or technical service bulletin covering the fault on your model proves the manufacturer already knew.
GM's current US divisions are Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac. Discontinued badges whose vehicles still appear in warranty work include Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Saturn, Saab and the original standalone Hummer, now revived as a GMC sub-brand. All of them trace back to the same manufacturer entity.
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Search your VIN, not the badge. NHTSA files it all under General Motors.
A recall proves they knew. Your records prove they did not fix it.
Check My Case ↗Recurring General Motors Faults
WHAT KEEPS COMING BACK.
These are the defect categories that generate the most Lemon Law and warranty claims across General Motors' four divisions. A vehicle showing one of these is not automatically a claim. A vehicle showing one of these repeatedly and unrepaired usually is.
L87 6.2L V8 Failure
GM recalled 597,571 trucks and SUVs under campaign 25V-274 after 28,102 reported L87 failures. NHTSA escalated to Engineering Analysis EA26-005 in August 2026, covering 997,743 vehicles whose repair may not have worked.
Rearview Camera Defects
Two 2026 campaigns cover 271,770 Malibus, filed after 19,117 complaints, and 306,511 Trax, Trailblazer, Envista and Encore GX crossovers, filed after more than 33,000 — all for blank or distorted backup images.
Brake Fluid Warning Failure
449,671 full-size trucks and SUVs across Chevrolet, GMC and Cadillac could lose the low-brake-fluid warning before the driver feels the pedal degrade.
ARC Inflator Rupture
995,085 2014-2017 Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia vehicles carry driver frontal airbag inflators that can explode on deployment and send metal fragments into the cabin.
Module and Compliance Software
Software-only campaigns are a GM signature: 740,108 vehicles for daytime running lights that would not switch off, and 81,177 Equinox EVs whose pedestrian alert failed federal volume requirements.
8-Speed Shudder and Valve Wear
90,081 Cadillac CT4, CT5, CT6 and Chevrolet Camaro models were recalled for transmission control valve wear causing momentary wheel lock-up, on top of long-running class litigation over 8L90 and 8L45 shudder.
Where It Ends Up
Four ways a General Motors claim resolves.
Which one applies depends on the state, the facts and what gets negotiated with General Motors. All four start with the same free case review.
The models we see most
Recall record · NHTSA · calendar 2025
GENERAL MOTORS27 CAMPAIGNS. 998,260 VEHICLES. ONE MANUFACTURER.
01 / 2021-2024
597,571
6.2L V8 engine failure — Chevrolet Silverado, Tahoe and Suburban; GMC Sierra, Yukon and Yukon XL; Cadillac Escalade and ESV. Rod and crankshaft defects cause seizure and loss of propulsion.
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02 / 2023-2024
449,671
Brake fluid warning failure — The same three divisions. Brake control module software and calibrations do not match, so the vehicle may not warn of fluid loss before the pedal degrades.
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03 / 2025-2026
306,511
Rearview camera blackout — Chevrolet Trax and Trailblazer; Buick Envista and Encore GX. Filed August 2026 after more than 33,000 owner complaints.
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04 / 2023-2025
271,770
Rearview camera blackout — Chevrolet Malibu. A supplier bonding defect degrades the camera assembly. GM logged 19,117 complaints before filing.
Check My Case ↗Filed under General Motors, LLC across Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac. No per-badge totals exist because NHTSA does not keep them that way. Figures from NHTSA for calendar 2025, checked 23 September 2026 — check your VIN for open recalls at no cost.
Read the 15 Questions ↗General Motors Lemon Law
15 questions General Motors owners ask.
General information about Lemon Law and warranty claims, not legal advice. What applies to a particular vehicle depends on its records, its warranty and the state where it was bought.
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Against General Motors, LLC. Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac are divisions, not separate manufacturers. NHTSA files every US campaign under the name General Motors, LLC, the warranty is a GM warranty, and a demand letter names GM. This is also why searching the badge finds so little: the record exists, it is just filed under the parent.
In calendar 2025 General Motors filed 27 recall campaigns covering 998,260 vehicles. Individual 2026 campaigns have been large: 597,571 for the 6.2L V8 engine defect, 449,671 for a delayed brake fluid warning, 306,511 and 271,770 for rearview camera failures. NHTSA publishes these at group level, so no per-badge figure exists.
Because GM shares engines, brake modules, bodies and software across its divisions. The 6.2L L87 V8 sits in the Chevrolet Silverado, the GMC Sierra and the Cadillac Escalade; the Buick Encore GX shares a platform with the Chevrolet Trax. One defect therefore produces parallel claims against vehicles wearing four different badges, all against the same manufacturer.
It is among the strongest facts in a Lemon Law claim. NHTSA opened Engineering Analysis EA26-005 in August 2026 covering 997,743 GM vehicles specifically because the 6.2L V8 recall remedy may not resolve the defect. A repair that did not work is a repair attempt, and repeated attempts on one unresolved fault are what the presumption is built on.
All were General Motors badges and all were discontinued — Oldsmobile in 2004, Pontiac and Saturn in 2010, Saab sold off, and the standalone Hummer wound down in 2010 before returning as the GMC Hummer EV. Vehicles from those badges are far outside any state Lemon Law window, though federal warranty law can still reach a vehicle with active warranty coverage.
No. A recall is the manufacturer acknowledging that a defect exists across a population of vehicles and offering a remedy. A Lemon Law claim arises from what happened to your specific vehicle: a substantial defect, reported inside the coverage period, that the manufacturer was given a reasonable number of attempts to repair and did not. The recall is useful evidence within that claim, not a substitute for it.
Yes, where the recall remedy addressed the defect at issue and the fault persisted afterward. Owners frequently leave recall visits out of their own count because the work was free and manufacturer-initiated, which weakens the record unnecessarily. If the vehicle went in for the fault and came back with the fault, it was an attempt.
Florida's presumption generally arises after three repair attempts for the same defect, or after the vehicle has been out of service for 30 or more cumulative days during the Lemon Law rights period. A separate and earlier trigger applies at 15 cumulative days, when written notice goes to the manufacturer. It is a presumption rather than a fixed requirement — a defect serious enough to be dangerous can qualify with fewer attempts, and the presumption is one route to the remedy rather than the only one.
New York generally looks for four repair attempts for the same defect, or 30 or more days out of service, within the first two years or 18,000 miles. The framework is close to Florida's but the thresholds and the arbitration process differ, and a vehicle bought in one state and serviced in another needs the applicable law identified early.
One that impairs the use, value or safety of the vehicle. Stalling, brake failure, steering faults and persistent electrical problems clearly qualify. A rattle or a trim complaint generally does not. Between those extremes the answer depends on how the fault affects the vehicle in normal use, and on what the repair orders actually say about it.
State Lemon Law is primarily directed at qualifying new and demonstrator vehicles. A used General Motors can still carry rights where a manufacturer or dealer warranty was active when the defect was reported, generally under federal warranty law including the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which does not carry the same new-vehicle limitation.
A leased vehicle can be covered where it meets the same substantive requirements that apply to a purchase. The calculation of any refund is tied to the amounts actually paid into the lease rather than the full vehicle price, and the leasing company is dealt with as part of the resolution rather than left to be sorted out afterward.
That visit still counts as a repair attempt. Intermittent faults are extremely common in software, camera and electrical systems, and a growing share of manufacturer campaigns are software-related. A record of repeated visits where the fault was reported and not resolved is precisely the pattern the law addresses. Ask for the complaint to be written down in your words, and keep the copy that says it could not be verified.
Three, in practice. A repurchase, where the manufacturer buys the vehicle back and refunds what was paid, less a statutory offset for the miles driven before the first report of the defect. A replacement with a comparable vehicle. Or a cash settlement where the vehicle stays with you and the manufacturer pays for the diminished value. Which applies depends on the state, the facts and what is negotiated.
Broadly: the purchase price plus collateral and incidental charges, minus a mileage offset tied to the distance driven before the defect was first reported. Registration, taxes and finance charges are frequently recoverable. The offset is the part manufacturers most often calculate in their own favour, and it is worth checking line by line.
Other Manufacturers
The badge does not decide the claim.
The law applies the same way to every brand sold in the state. What differs is the defect pattern, the warranty terms and how hard the manufacturer fights.
Get in Touch
Is your General Motors back at the dealership again?
Send the year, model and the repair history. Whichever badge is on the grille, the claim runs against General Motors.
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