GM slow on recalls, Congress record shows

Documents from a US House of Representatives subcommittee show that General Motors chief executive 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 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 the problem to 13 deaths.

The documents also show 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 was slow to act on safety issues.