While Barra was fixing D-ham, elsewhere in the company GM readied the launch of the 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt, the car that would haunt it a decade later. When a small group of engineers began investigating reports that the Cobalt’s key could slip out of the “run” position when jostled, she never heard about it, Barra insists–D-ham made Cadillacs, Buicks and Pontiacs, not Cobalts.
Over the next few years, as Barra rose in the company–promoted to executive director of manufacturing engineering, developing factory processes and machinery–the switch problem was festering. In 2005 product engineers twice considered potential fixes to the switch but took no action, instead issuing a “service bulletin” in December 2005 advising dealers to tell customers who complain about unexpected shutoffs to remove heavy items from their key chains. In 2006 the ignition was quietly redesigned, without a corresponding change in the part number, a crucial error that escaped notice for years and likely delayed the issuance of a recall.