General Motors Corp. Thursday said it was recalling 246,433 of its Saturn Vue sport utility vehicles to strengthen their rear suspension systems.
The recall was prompted by recent "dynamic stability," or rollover, tests conducted by U.S. federal safety regulators in which the rear suspension on the vehicles sustained damage, GM said.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the left rear wheel on two Saturn Vues actually collapsed during the tests, when their suspensions failed during a sharp turn known as a "fishhook maneuver" at 45 miles (72 km) per hour.
NHTSA said it had received one consumer complaint of a similar wheel collapse when the driver tried to recover after briefly veering off the road. The left rear wheel bent underneath the vehicle, resulting in a rollover, NHTSA said.
Until now, the VUE has been one of the few bright spots in the Saturn lineup this year, with sales up strongly.
GM said the recalled vehicles, from model years 2002-2004, included 231,123 SUVs on the road in the United States and 15,310 in Canada.
