General Motors can’t find all of the cars that it’s trying to recall

When you’re trying to recall a bunch of cars, there are a few issues that you can run in to. One such issue is that you have to locate all of the cars before you can get them back. This is a problem that General Motors is having right now as it tries to track down the 2.2 million cars that have been affected by a recently discovered ignition switch issue.

In a quarterly filing to NHTSA, the American automaker disclosed that 139,562, around 6.4% of this single recall, could not be located. Several of those cars, including the Chevrolet Cobalt and the Saturn Ion, are more than a decade old. This means that they have probably changed hands quite a few times, or might be rusting away in a junk yard somewhere.

The news isn’t all bad for General Motors, however, as the company has successfully repaired 281,581 vehicles through the end of June, with a total of around 700,000 cars having been repaired as of Monday.

Historically, only about 75% or so of recalls are completed, however, that number begins to drop significantly the older the cars are. General Motors is trying to counter this by sending out reminders on postcards every three months, and has promised to expand its outreach programs as part of its consent agreement with the NHTSA.

Read more about the story at Detroit News.