2014 Silverado and Sierra Score a Safety First for Trucks

 GM Media Reports:

The 2014 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and High Country and the GMC Sierra and Sierra Denali 1500 are the first pickup trucks to receive the highest possible five-star Overall Vehicle Score for safety since the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration changed its New Car Assessment Program for the 2011 model year.
NHTSA only tested the crew cab models of Silverado and Sierra. Chevrolet and GMC expect crew cab models to account for 60 percent of their 2014 light duty full-size pickup truck sales.
“Safety is as important to truck buyers as it is to car buyers,” said Gay Kent, GM general director of Vehicle Safety and Crashworthiness. “Silverado and Sierra set a benchmark for pickup truck safety by offering a full array of advanced features designed to protect occupants before, during and after a collision.”
Silverado and Sierra offer fully boxed frames, extensive use of high-strength steel, and several segment-exclusive safety features are available, including Forward Collision Alert, Lane Departure Warning, and Safety Alert Seat.

• Safety Alert Seat warns the driver of potential traffic danger using directional vibration pulses from the seat cushion. The patented warning approach is tied to all of the on-board crash avoidance systems.
• Forward collision alert technology helps prevent frontal crashes by alerting the driver when the truck is closing in on a vehicle ahead too quickly, giving him or her additional time to react and avoid a crash.
• Lane Departure Warning technology alerts the driver when the truck drifts over a lane line when traveling at least 35 mph.
• Rear Vision Camera with Dynamic Guidelines allows the driver, when in reverse, to view objects directly behind the vehicle via the radio screen in the center stack, allowing for easier parking and backing maneuvers.
• New, standard lap belt pretensions in the front-seat outboard safety belts.
• Six standard air bags and 360-degree sensor system, including dual-stage frontal air bags, head-curtain side-impact air bags with rollover protection, and seat-mounted side-impact air bags.
• Trailer-sway control that works with StabiliTrak to provide the driver with additional assistance when towing a trailer. When it senses trailer sway, it intervenes with braking and/or reduced engine power to bring the trailer under control.
• Four-wheel, four-channel, antilock disc brakes (ABS) that help provide straight, more controlled stops by preventing wheel lock-up in most road conditions.
• OnStar is available, using GPS and cellular phone technology to automatically call for help in the event of crash. OnStar service also includes MyLink mobile apps, which offer vehicle information and OnStar services via the customer’s smartphone.

GM Wins Eight Best Vehicle Awards in J.D. Power Initial Quality Survey

General Motors Co. vehicles won eight awards in the annual J.D. Power & Associates survey of initial quality, a marked improvement since the largest American automaker turned itself around after a 2009 bankruptcy.
GM cars and trucks won eight top prizes as the best vehicles in their segments of the U.S. auto market in the survey of new vehicle owners.
Chevrolet, which accounts for 71 percent of General Motors’ U.S. sales, jumped 10 spots to No. 5 on J.D. Power’s initial quality ratings for 33 brands, the marketing information consultants said on Wednesday.
David Sargent, vice president of global automotive at J.D. Power, said GM has “done an outstanding job” of working to change the long-held perception that its products were of inferior quality.
“GM’s always been good at improving a vehicle once it’s come to market,” Sargent said in an interview. “What they’re also showing to be pretty good at now is launching vehicles with pretty good quality too.”
The J.D. Power survey is in its 27th year. This was the first year that participants could fill out surveys online regarding their experiences in the first 90 days of new-vehicle ownership.
The survey was conducted from February to May this year, and all of the vehicles in the survey were 2013 models.
This year’s survey was updated to add more consumer feedback on the quality of new technologies, including navigation, lane-departure, telephone, information-entertainment and voice-activated systems.
Sargent said that for the overall industry, quality slipped from last year, with the survey results showing more consumer dissatisfaction. That was largely due to expanded inclusion of new technologies in vehicles and consumers having difficulty using many of the new systems.
But Sargent added that more complaints were linked to design-related issues rather than a defect or malfunction that could more easily be fixed by dealers than in years past.
GMC, which jumped 10 spots in the ratings, and Chevrolet were the top-rated non-luxury brands in the survey.
The industry average was 113 problems reported per 100 vehicles. All of GM’s brands, including Cadillac and Buick, performed better than the industry average.
Non-luxury brands that scored better than the industry average were, in order of finish, GMC, Chevrolet, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia Motors Corp. and Chrysler Group LLC’s namesake brand, Chrysler. Chrysler Group is majority owned by Fiat SpA.
Ford Motor Co.’s namesake brand remained in 27th place. Sargent said that while the automaker has improved on its touch-screen and voice-command controls, it has also offered its information-entertainment systems on more models, which opened it up for complaints.
Falling the most spots from a year ago were Nissan’s namesake brand, which dropped 14 places to 30th, and Chrysler’s Ram truck brand, which skidded 14 slots to 28th.
Scoring the worst on the survey were the Fiat brand at 32nd and Toyota’s Scion brand at 33rd.
Winners of some of the non-luxury best-in-segment awards were the Chevrolet Impala for large cars, Chevrolet Silverado for large pickup trucks.
In addition, GM was awarded the Silver Plant Assembly Line Quality Award for its Oshawa, Ontario, plant where the Chevrolet Equinox and Impala are built.

Brand Highlights

Chevrolet

• Segment Award Recipients
  • Camaro – Midsize Sporty Car
  • Impala  -  Large Car
  • Tahoe – Large CUV
  • Silverado HD – Large Heavy-Duty Pickup
  • Avalanche – Large Light-Duty Pickup
• Segment Top 3
  • Spark – Ranked Second  - City Car
  • Equinox – Ranked Third – Compact CUV
  • Silverado LD – Ranked Third – Large Light-Duty Pickup

Cadillac

• Escalade – Segment Award Recipient - Large Premium CUV
• CTS – Ranked Third – Compact Premium Car

Buick

• Encore – Segment Award Recipient – Sub-Compact CUV
• Enclave – Ranked Second – Midsize CUV
• Regal – Ranked Third – Midsize Car

GMC

• Sierra LD – Segment Award Recipient - Large Light-Duty Pickup
• Sierra HD – Ranked Second – Large Heavy-Duty Pickup

Source Globe and Mail

2014 Impala Reveal

ONSTAR Remote Link

1) RemoteLink™ requires an active OnStar subscription and a compatible vehicle and mobile device.You can check the compatibility of your vehicle and mobile device by clicking here.

2) Download OnStar RemoteLink mobile app from the iTunes^® App Store, GooglePlay^TM for Android™, or BlackBerry^®5App World^TM.

3) Open RemoteLink and log in with your onstar.ca username and password.

1. If you don’t have an onstar.ca username and password, simply go to onstar.ca, click "sign up," and enter your account number and postal code.
   
2. Don't know your OnStar account number? Click the link next to the "Account Number" field to have it emailed to you.
   

Now you’re ready to enjoy unprecedented connectivity to your vehicle, wherever you go.

 Watch this short video for a quick introduction!

Discover Chevrolet My Link

2014 Sierra Safety Alert Seat Aids Driver Awareness

 With spring here, we are excited for the arrival of the 2014 GMC Sierra. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing to the eye, it also offers innovative design in the ways of safety. GM Canada just released this article about a new alert system that vibrates your seat to alert drivers of danger ahead. Read the article from GM Media Canada for more information! 

DETROIT – The all-new 2014 Sierra arrives this summer with available advanced active safety features never offered to full-size pickup truck owners, including Forward Collision Alert and Lane Departure Warning. The manner by which alerts from the system are delivered to the driver is equally innovative, thanks to GMC’s optional Safety Alert Seat.

With the Safety Alert Seat, Sierra owners get feedback transmitted as a vibration through the surface of the driver’s seat bottom cushion. When the Lane Departure Warning system’s camera detects the Sierra is leaving a lane without a turn signal active in that direction, a vibration in the left or right seat bolster directs the driver’s attention to the side of the lane encroachment. When a potential collision is detected ahead by the Forward Collision Alert system, both sides of the seat vibrate.

“It’s akin to someone tapping on your shoulder in a crowd to get your attention,” said General Motors Active Safety Technical Fellow Raymond Kiefer. “Using the tactile sense to communicate crash threat direction provides an effective and intuitive way to cut through the clutter of visual and auditory sensory information that drivers routinely experience.”

According to Kiefer, GM research shows that the seat may direct driver attention to the location of a crash threat more quickly and accurately than beeping alerts.
Forward Collision Alert uses a camera behind the windshield to monitor traffic ahead and estimate time to collision. A green vehicle-shaped icon on the instrument cluster lets the driver know the system detects a vehicle ahead. When the Sierra gets too close to a vehicle ahead, the icon turns orange. When approaching a vehicle too rapidly, red lights flash on the windshield and the driver is alerted either audibly or through the optional Safety Alert Seat.

Using the same sophisticated camera technology, Lane Departure Warning uses an icon of a vehicle crossing a dotted lane marker and shines green when detecting a lane ahead at speeds above 35 mph. The icon glows amber and flashes when a warning is active. Both Forward Collision Alert and Lane Departure Warning can be deactivated if the driver desires. Both, along with the Safety Alert Seat, are available on select trim levels.

Sierra’s other active safety features include standard StabiliTrak and optional technologies like a Rear Vision Camera and Front and Rear Park Assist. Sierra also benefits from available trailering safety technologies like Trailer Sway Control and an Integrated Trailer Brake Controller.
In addition to active safety features, the 2014 Sierra features six standard air bags and high-strength steel in the A-pillars, B-pillars, roof rails and other body structures to create a solid and protected safety cage around the passenger cabin.

Five Star Safety Honours

2013 Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia All Achieve Five-Star NHTSA Crash Test Honors 

by Manoli Katakis

 

Mar 13th, 2013

The respective refreshes that came with the 2013 Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia crossovers were more than just skin deep. There was also a major new, industry first, safety feature added: the center-mounted front airbag. With the help of this breakthrough feature, all three crossovers earned the highest possible five-star overall vehicle score for safety as part of the National Highway Traffic Safety. They’re also IIHS Top Safety Picks.
The front center air bag is was designed to help protect drivers and front passengers from colliding into each other in the event of a side-impact crash. This prevents major head injuries induced from contact, which turns out to be an all-too-common thing in the event of a side impact crash with two people in the front row.

Article from GM Authority.com