GM slow to act on recalls, House documents show

Documents from a House subcommittee show that General Motors CEO Mary Barra received an email about a steering problem in the Saturn Ion in October 2011 — more than two years before the car was recalled.

That email message was not related to a problem with an ignition switch that is at the heart of a separate recall of 2.6 million small cars. That recall is the subject of a subcommittee investigation. GM has linked that problem to 13 deaths.

The documents also show that a GM engineer signed off on changes to the defective switch without changing the part number, which made the problem harder to track.

Also included is a 2013 email from federal regulators complaining that GM is slow to act on safety issues.