General Motors Co. told its dealers to halt the sale of Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave large sport utility vehicles because the window stickers on the SUVs overstate their fuel efficiency.
The fuel economy on the stickers is 1 to 2 miles per gallon higher than the vehicles’ actual performance, the automaker said in a statement Friday. GM told dealers in a memo that they should be able to resume sales early next week once they have stickers with the correct mileage. The issue, which GM blamed on an “inadvertent error,” affects almost 60,000 vehicles.
The incorrect figures on the labels and on a U.S. Department of Energy website said the combined fuel economy of the all-wheel-drive vehicles was 19 mpg and also overstated the city and highway mileage of the front-drive versions by 2 mpg to 17 mpg and 24 mpg, GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson said. He said GM found the error on its own and alerted the government. An all-wheel-drive Traverse gets 15 mpg in the city, 22 mpg on the highway and 17 mpg combined, according to updated figures on the U.S. department website.
The SUVs are profit generators, and the news pushed the company’s shares lower. GM fell 1.9 percent to $30.59 at 3:45 p.m. New York time.
GM said it will contact anyone who bought one of the vehicles after seeing a window sticker with an inflated mileage rating.
The error and stop-sale were reported earlier by Automotive News.
