Fires in old models prompt a total recall by Ford

-NYTimes
04/20/2008- After six recalls to correct problems with millions of Ford Motor Company cruise-control switches blamed for almost 1,500 fires, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the US took an unusual step. In February, it issued a consumer advisory urging owners whose vehicles had not yet been fixed to have the switches disconnected immediately. “Vehicles are continuing to catch fire and buildings are continuing to catch fire because the remedy hasn’t been effected yet,” Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the safety agency, said. “This is a defect that could possibly have dire consequences, and we wanted to do what we could to try to make people more aware of the need to get vehicles back to the dealer quickly —if not for the permanent remedy, at least for a short-term remedy.”

The recalls—which included what the government called a recall of a recall—began in 1999. They covered some 10 million Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles from 1992-2004, a record number recalled for a single problem.

Ford had already set the record for the largest recall, which also involved a potential fire hazard. That was for 7.9 million vehicles with ignition switch problems.

The agency’s February advisory concerned a cruise-control deactivation switch that could develop a short circuit. Regulators say that could cause a vehicle to catch fire even while it is parked and the ignition is off. The switch’s function is to cut off the cruise control when the driver taps the brakes.

The safety administration says it can connect 65 fires to switch failures, but the problem could be far greater: the agency received 1,472 complaints or allegations of engine compartment fires related to the switches before the investigation was closed in August 2006. Because investigators were often unable to contact owners, not enough data could be collected to make a final determination on many complaints.

The agency also received 60 more fire complaints since the inquiry ended.

The agency has not linked switch failures to any deaths, but at least three wrongful death suits have been filed against Ford.

The February advisory stated that many dealers would disconnect the switch as a “drive-through” service for customer convenience—an interim step until parts are more available.

An auto safety advocate, Clarence Ditlow, said the consumer advisory was “too little, too late” and illustrated a more serious problem: the need for the agency to offer more protection to consumers by changing the way it handles such safety problems.

of allowing Ford to string out the recalls over almost a decade, the agency should have required a recall of all the vehicles at the beginning, said Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington.

Ford and the federal safety agency said the recall came in stages because in 1998, when the investigation began, it was not clear why the switch was failing— especially since the problem was occurring in some models and not in others. “There is no need to recall a vehicle for which there is no problem,” Tyson said. But as the vehicles using this switch aged, failure rates started to increase in certain models.

Then, Ford and the agency said, the models were recalled. “This was one of the most complex and mysterious cases we have ever been involved in,” Tyson said. “And although we do now understand why the switch was failing, to this day we still have Ford vehicles using that same switch that are not experiencing any unusual level of failure at all.”

The fires are believed to occur this way: over time, applying the brakes creates a bit of vacuum that can cause the failure of a seal in the switch. Brake fluid can then leak into the switch and cause corrosion. Over time, the corrosion can cause the switch, which is powered all the time, to overheat and ignite an electrical fire. Ford stopped using the switch on 2002 models, Sherwood said. But the design was inadvertently carried over to some early 2003 models and the 2004 F-150 Lightning.

—NY Times / Cheryl Jensen...

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