The "door ajar" alarm on my 2007 HHR, and on every HHR on my dealer's lot, and on every privately owned HHR that I have so far investigated, works incorrectly. GM states that the alarm works as designed which if true gives every owner/operator a false sense of security. I ask that you, if convenient, check your HHR to see if your's works in the same manner. Those of you with children should check this out.

First check your "rear gate alarm" as it should work correctly i.e. when unlatched but on the safety latch produces an alarm on your dash panel. Next try the same thing with your passenger doors. I believe you will find that the "door ajar" alarm does not register on your dash panel until the door is actually open 3 to 5 inches. As a result, you do not have a "door ajar" alarm. If you feel this is a problem, which I am reasonably sure you will after a little thought, ask your dealer to fix it. The insidious factor, especially if you have kids, is that you are led to believe that you will be notified via the dash panel alarm system, if one or more of your passenger doors is unlatched an/or open. You will not.

If your HHR has the same issue, and you believe it to be important, I suggest you call GM at 1-866-790-5700 ext 42031 and speak to A.J. or just call GM at 1-800 222-1020. If you do not have this problem with your HHR, please let me know. Feel free to email me. Thanks.

G---

 

Frankly, you're about 3 years late on calling this to everyone's attention.

The "Door Ajar" indicator and the correlation with the opening of the door, was a large topic of discussion for many months when the HHR first came out. A couple of different forums carried these discussions. A large number of owners returned to the dealers to question adjustment...with the same answer, "Funtioning as Designed".

Also, number of people entered a complaint officially with Gm and NHSTB. To my knowledge nothing every became of it.

Does seem "stupid", doesn't it? A door needs to be open about 6 inches for the safety notice to take effect.

In this case....I would REALLY consider this a design flaw.

 

Hey, thanks for replying. When I spoke with the NHSTB they told me to call the FTC which I did. The FTC said they would create a file and see if anyone else filed a complaint.

I guess the question is, how many children have to fall out of the car before GM does anything about it? I am surprised that GM would admit to deliberately designing in a safty flaw such as this. Oh well.

Thanks again.

G---

 

Oh, I don't think they admit to a design flaw (that was my thought). And, I'm sure you would have heard of a child falling out of the vehicle because of a design flaw......the media would eat it up. So, I don't believe it's happened, YET.

Oh by the way, the child falling out is exactly what I and many owners wrote, as a safety concern.

 

GM has already implemented two safety features to keep you children from falling out of the car while driving. If you're really worried about your children falling out why wouldn't you turn the little plastic screw on the inside of the rear doors so the rear doors are not allow to be opened from inside the vehicle? That's what it's there for. The inside handles on my rear doors have been turned off since day one on my HHR because of the possibility of my children opening the back doors screwing around while I'm driving. That combined with the button on the dash to lock out the rear windows pretty much makes it impossible for your kids to fall out while driving unless the parent forgets to check and make sure that they completely closed the door.

 

HORAY FOR YOU Captain!!, Wheelie says those child safty locks are there for a reason, TO KEEP KIDS SAFE!! that along with the rear window deactivate button in conjunction will lead to one thing...PRECIOUS CARGO STILL IN THE VEHICLE!! :)

 

Yeah, children falling out is probably a little over the top, especially with seat belts and the other door safty built-ins on the doors as mentioned. I would like to clarify one thing, however, both GM and my dealer service dept stated the door ajar alarm worked "as designed". My service order has it written right on it, and A.J. at GM said the same thing to me. It appears I am beating a dead horse here and probably wasting everyone's time, but the FTC seemed to be interested, and the NHSTB did tell me they were the one that would deal with GM on this. I have their number if anyone is interested.

Thanks for all the information etc you have provided me.

G---

 

wtrdirector.....

Tell them to check their own records. As I mentioned in my forst post of this thread....many owners have issued written complaints regarding this issue.

And again, after contacting the dealers about our concern, we were all told or given the same result,......"Functions as designed".

I'm wondering who A.J. is that you have referred to . If it is someone you contacted from the Chevrolet Customer Service number, which is in the back of your Owners Book, he/she is just a flunky who is a contract employee through a separate company. They cannot do much and have very little authority, other than escalating a "problem" to someone who MIGHT contact a GM person about it. They're MOSTLY PR people.

 

The number I called relative to GM was given to me by my dealer service dept. It could be the one in the back of the book, I did not check. A.J. was the person at the other end of the line.

It still puzzles me why the door ajar alarm on other GM vehicles operates in the same manner as the HHR gate alarm i.e. when the door is "ajar" and not open, and then GM decides to design the HHR door ajar alarm to work only after the door is open 3 to 4 inches. Obviously, it is a design flaw and GM just won't admit it.

Well, I think I have beaten this poor dead horse to a pulp. Thank you everyone who responded. At least I know I am not alone with this horse.

 

i bet it can be corrected with a simple change of the switch mounted in the door... obviously the current switch doesn't contact soon enough.. also known as too much travel before contact.. In my former job I worked alot with electric over hydraulics and even designed some systems for some special applications and the timing of a trigger "switch" relative to its function can cause a guy too loose allot of sleep... but this seems simple to fix to me if your GM.. "just find a switch with shorter travel" how ever I have not investigated it other than reading this thread... my be some underlying reason... "functioning as designed" is a lame answer... but it sounds like a "company answer"....