Corrections
The corrections log
Log current as of 2026-08-05 · newest entries first
An archive of record that edits itself quietly is not an archive of record. Every substantive correction made to a page here is written down, dated and left in place permanently, and the corrected page links back to its entry.
The log
2026-08-05 · TFR-2026-09 · How to find the record of a dealership’s 2009 termination
The signing window was stated in business days, which no source supports. The opening paragraph described the General Motors wind-down agreement as one “signed in six days.” The audit records only that the agreements went out in the first week of June 2009 and had to be back by 2009-06-12; it counts no days, and neither does the hearing record. The sentence now names the deadline instead of a derived interval. Source: SIGTARP-10-008, p. 19.
2026-08-05 · TFR-2026-07 · What an arbitration win was actually worth
A deadline was attributed to the wrong subsection. Endnote 2 placed the 40-day deadline to elect arbitration in § 747(c). It is in § 747(d). Subsection (c) is the separate 30-day duty on the manufacturer to give each covered dealership the criteria on which it was cut. The endnote now says so. Source: the enrolled text of Pub. L. No. 111-117, § 747, 123 Stat. 3220.
2026-08-05 · TFR-2026-06 · Why state good-cause protections did not stop the 2009 terminations
Three errors, corrected together. Endnote 10 placed the 40-day election deadline in § 747(c); it is in § 747(d), and (c) is the manufacturer’s 30-day disclosure duty. Section 9 and endnote 11 said California’s statute had been “amended in 2023 to reach competition with a franchisee ‘directly or indirectly through an affiliate’”; that phrase was already in the section, and a federal court records it as consistently used there since 2012. What Assembly Bill 473 changed, effective January 1, 2024, was the competition clause it governs, which no longer turns on the same line-make or the same market area. And section 5 stated as fact that Chrysler cut 789 dealerships “in 22 days”; that figure is the audit’s word, repeated and never derived, and the interval between the letters of 2009-05-14 and the effective date of 2009-06-10 in the audit’s own timeline is 27. The page now attributes it and prints both. Sources: Pub. L. No. 111-117, § 747, 123 Stat. 3220; Cal. Veh. Code § 11713.3 and the order of 2026-03-30 in CNCDA v. Volkswagen of America, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-01316-BAS-DEB (S.D. Cal.), ECF No. 66; SIGTARP-10-008, pp. 15, 21.
2026-08-05 · TFR-2026-05 · The criteria: what General Motors used to pick 1,454 dealerships
Two derived figures were printed as findings. Section 2 and the page description said dealers had “roughly six business days” to sign the wind-down agreement. No source states the window in business days. The page now gives the deadline and the only contemporaneous account of what it left: Senator Olympia Snowe’s “10 days” and Fritz Henderson’s answer that almost half of the dealers signed on the day they received it. Section 7 also stated as fact that Chrysler terminated 789 dealerships “within 22 days”; that is the audit’s phrase, which it repeats and never derives, and its own timeline gives 27. Both are now attributed. Sources: GM and Chrysler Dealership Closures: Protecting Dealers and Consumers, S. Hrg. 111-444 (2009-06-03); SIGTARP-10-008, pp. 19, 21.
No error found on this site has been reported by a reader. The four entries above were found in this publication’s own review of its launch slate on the day it published, and are logged because they changed meaning. Typography, spelling, broken links and markup are fixed silently under the policy below.
The policy
- What gets corrected. Any error of fact: a wrong date, a wrong number, a misattributed quotation, a misstated holding, a broken or misdirected citation, a mischaracterisation of what a document says or of what a person said on the record.
- What a correction looks like. Each entry names the page and its page ID, states what was wrong, states what it now says, gives the source that settled it, and carries the date the fix was published.
- The wrong text is not hidden. Corrections describe the error rather than removing all trace of it, so that a reader who cited or quoted the earlier version can see exactly what changed.
- The corrected page says so. A corrected page carries a dated note linking to its entry in this log.
- Silent edits are limited to the trivial. Typography, spelling, broken links and markup are fixed without a log entry because they do not change meaning. Anything that changes meaning gets an entry.
- Substantive revisions are dated too. When a page is updated because the underlying law or docket moved rather than because it was wrong, that is a revision, not a correction; the page carries the date it was last substantively revised, and material revisions are noted here as well.
- Every report is answered. A report that turns out to be right produces a correction. One that turns out to be wrong produces a reply explaining which document the page rests on.
Reporting an error
Write to editor@hometownautodealers.org. The most useful report names the page, quotes the sentence and points at the source that shows the problem — an opinion, a docket entry, an enrolled bill, an agency report. Corrections are made regardless of who reports them and regardless of whether the reporter is a party to anything described on the site.