General Motors have announced a safety defect affecting certain 2013-2016 Cadillac ATS sedans and will be asking owners to return to their dealership for repairs. According to reports, these vehicles may have a rear window defrost coil antenna that may have been manufactured with a weak terminal connection. If the weak connection is subject to excessive cycling or continuous operation a fire could develop inside the rear pillar on the driver’s side.

Dealers will reflash the Electronic Climate Control (ECC) module to remove the automatic rear defogger “on” function that occurs as a result of manual or remote start of the vehicle. 2013 models with a “continuous on” feature (enabled at highway speeds in low temperatures) will also be disabled. The base functionality of the rear defogger will not be lost and the customer will retain the ability to turn on the function manually from inside the vehicle. Removal of the automatic rear defogger functions described above will avoid cycling of the coil antenna module when the rear window does not require defogging.

Owners wanting more information about the problem are asked to contact Cadillac customer service at 1-800-458-8006. GM’s number for this recall is 15299 and the NHTSA campaign number is 15V-558.