Chevrolet defect petition DP15004
Rollover Side Curtain Air Bags. NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation opened this defect petition about the air bags on 2 model years (2010). Opened Jun 11, 2015, closed Mar 7, 2017 after 21 months without a recall. closed
What NHTSA says
Source: Office of Defects Investigation, as filedIn June 2015, the Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) opened this Defect Petition in response to a petition (see ODI 10568388) requesting a defect investigation of several alleged defects that can cause occupant ejections during rollover crashes in certain General Motors vehicles. The petition focused on a 2011 Texas crash involving a model year 2010 Chevrolet Tahoe, which allegedly resulted in multiple occupants to be ejected. One of the ejected occupants was fatally injured. In assessing the petitioner's request, ODI reviewed information from the petitioner, technical information related to rollover side curtain air bags from General Motors (note: ODI did not request GM's field incident data), NHTSA's prior testing and evaluation work related to FMVSS No. 226 Ejection Mitigation, and potentially relevant reports in the NHTSA complaint and crash databases. Based on the information available at the present time, NHTSA does not believe that a safety-related defect currently exists in the design of the rollover side curtain air bags in the model year 2010 Chevrolet Tahoe and other similarly designed Tahoe and Yukon vehicles. Therefore, the petition is denied. However, the agency will take further action if warranted by changing future circumstances. The official petition denial, as published in the Federal Register, is available in the document file for this petition.
A Defect Petition is a petition from a member of the public asking NHTSA to open a defect investigation; the agency grants or denies it and publishes the reasons. The summary is the agency’s own text from its investigation file, unedited; the opening and closing resumes with the full reasoning are on NHTSA’s site under this number.
What this means for an owner
Source: and what happens nextAn investigation is not a finding that a defect exists, and it puts no duty on anyone. NHTSA opens a Preliminary Evaluation when complaints and other reports suggest a condition worth asking the manufacturer about; it upgrades to an Engineering Analysis when the answers warrant testing; it closes either when it recommends a recall, when the manufacturer recalls on its own, or when no defect trend is found. The agency’s own goals are about four months for a petition, eight for a Preliminary Evaluation or a Recall Query and eighteen for an Engineering Analysis; many run longer.
This one closed without a recall. That means NHTSA found no defect trend it chose to act on at the time, or the manufacturer addressed the condition another way (a service campaign or a bulletin, which have their own pages). A closed file can be reopened if new reports arrive.
Model years it names
Source: as NHTSA filed themAlso named: 2010 Chevrolet Tahoe; 2010 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid.
A vehicle page’s investigation list carries the same action; a name here is the scope NHTSA opened, not a list of affected VINs.
Common questions
Source: NHTSA Office of Defects InvestigationIs DP15004 a recall?
No. A defect petition is NHTSA asking questions, not a recall. A safety recall carries an NHTSA campaign number and a duty to repair for free; this one closed without one. Whether one particular vehicle has an open recall is a VIN question at nhtsa.gov/recalls.
Is DP15004 still open?
No. It closed on Mar 7, 2017 without a recall.
Which vehicles does DP15004 cover?
NHTSA opened it on 2 model years: 2010 Chevrolet Tahoe, 2010 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid. That is the scope of the inquiry, not a list of affected vehicles; a recall, if one follows, defines its own population by VIN.