Windstar may face switch recall

Officials probe vans that use device that has forced recalls of nearly 10 million Ford vehicles.

- Detroit News Washington Bureau

05/22/2008- WASHINGTON -- The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Monday it had opened a preliminary investigation into 1.7 million Ford Windstar vans that have a cruise control deactivation switch that's been recalled in nearly 10 million other Ford vehicles.

The agency announced the investigation after receiving complaints of 130 engine fires, including 36 in the last year.

Ford Motor Co. has been repeatedly forced to expand its recall of vehicles with the switch, since its first recall in 1999.

Ford has recalled 9.6 million other vehicles in seven separate recall campaigns. The combined recalls represent one of the largest efforts over a single safety issue in U.S. history.

Windstar vans from the 1995-2003 model years are part of at least 6 million Ford vehicles with the switch that haven't been recalled. An investigation must take place before an official recall is issued by the NHTSA.

Two of the Windstar Van fires caused structural damage to homes, the NHTSA said. Of the complaints, 33 said the vehicle was parked.

Ford spokeswoman Jennifer Moore said the switches involved in the Windstar vans are installed differently than they are on the recalled vehicles. In the vans, the switches don't have electrical power running to them at all times, unlike switches in the recalled models.

"We're cooperating with NHTSA," Moore said. "We've continued to monitor the field performance of our vehicles and we don't believe at this time there is an elevated risk of fire."

Moore said Ford didn't know the cause of the fires from the complaints.

The $21 Texas Instruments switches were installed in more than 16 million Ford vehicles over a decade before the automaker stopped using them in 2002. The switches have been linked to nearly 550 vehicle fires and 1,500 complaints. Ford faces more than 125 lawsuits around the country linked to the fires.

In February, the NHTSA urged owners of some 4.6 million recalled Ford vehicles to get them fixed or at least have the cruise controls deactivated immediately.

About 40 percent of the recalled vehicles have been repaired, leaving just less than 4 million to be fixed, Ford said.

"The repair rate appears to be lower than typical because a large number of the vehicles are older models. Many date back to the early '90s," Moore said.

Ford has sent as many as seven letters to owners notifying them of the recalls, including 6 million mailings to owners between April 7 and Monday.

The number of letters required for notice varies by scope of recall, but NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson said Ford has gone above and beyond what's required.

Ford is repairing about 45,000 recalled vehicles a day, Moore said. The company has enough parts to fix all recalled vehicles. It had said it wouldn't have enough parts until June.

That includes about 200,000 vans and trucks recalled again earlier this month that had already been repaired -- a repair that Ford now says didn't work. The switch is used to deactivate a vehicle's cruise control when a driver taps the brake pedal. Most of the lawsuits allege fires began after the vehicles were turned off.

Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategies, said it's important for the NHTSA to understand why fires are occurring in vehicles where the power isn't running to the switch at all times.

In March 2007, The Detroit News first reported on a death linked by government investigators to the Ford switch. The case involved Al Gavegan Jr., a 76-year-old who died in a blaze that started when a late-night fire spread from his 1994 Mercury Grand Marquis parked in his attached garage in San Antonio, investigators found.

A police report listed the fire's probable cause as "an electrical malfunction in the engine compartment of the vehicle."

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