General Motors To Recall Pickups For Power Steering Fault

General Motors is gearing up to recall about 80,000 pickup trucks to address complaints of a temporary loss of power steering assist. The campaign affects the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado and 2014 GMC Sierra.

According to a defect report prepared by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration (NHTSA), the problem has cropped up most often in low-speed turns, where high demand on the electric power steering system can cause a low-voltage situation and a temporary loss of assist.

The fear, naturally, is that the sudden change in effort required to steer the truck could cause the driver to lose control and crash.

As with most electric power steering defects, this one is software related, and GM's fix is to "reflash" the steering control unit with new software.

According to the Reuters news agency, GM told safety regulators that it made changes to its electric power steering system prior to the 2015 model year "to address potential sources of temporary low voltage conditions that disable the power steering."

The recall affects about 715,000 trucks outside of Canada, mostly in the United States.