Automaker has issued recalls related to fuel and oil leaks and randomly firing airbags, and is under investigation for faulty seatbelts and batteries
November 18, 2024 at 13:40
- Ford has issued four recalls so far this month, one related to a fuel line bracket and another about oil leaks.
- Two further recalls are due to a missing airbag label and a passenger airbag that may fire unexpectedly.
- The NHTSA is also investigating Ford over faulty seatbelts and a battery problem that may cause a loss of engine power.
When you sell almost 2 million cars, trucks, and SUVs every year it’s inevitable that a few reliability gremlins are going to creep in. But we’re barely more than halfway through November and already Ford has issued four recalls and the NHTSA has announced it’s investigating the automaker over two more problems.
The four recalls were all issued on the same day, though they relate to different issues and affect different vehicles. The first one is to inspect a fuel line that might not have sufficient clearance from the bracket holding it and could potentially cause the line to fracture, leak fuel, and create a fire risk. Ford’s hi-tech solution to the 65 2024 Ranger trucks affected is to get dealers to secure the line with a tie strap.
Related: Ford Hit With Second-Biggest Fine Ever For Botched Recall
Another fire risk comes from misaligned engine cup plugs that can result in oil leaking from 2,418 examples of the 2024-2025 F-150, 2024 Expedition, and 2024 Lincoln Navigator. This time dealers will check the plug alignment but only replace it if necessary.
The biggest recall is far more serious in terms of the number of affected cars (27,678) though the fault poses far less of a threat to occupant safety because it only concerns a missing dashboard air bag warning label. But that label has to be there by law so Ford is bringing various 2020-2025 Explorer, Lincoln Aviator, 2020-2024 Escape, Lincoln Corsair, and 2018-2024 F-150, Expedition and Lincoln Navigator models back to dealers to have them applied.
Also airbag-related, but more worrying are the 15 units of the 2024-25 Ford Escape whose dashboard (seen below) might not have been manufactured correctly and so prevent the passenger airbag from firing. Those crossovers are in line to get a new dashboard cover.
That’s it for Ford recalls for now, but don’t be surprised if a couple more are added to the list soon. A week after Ford’s quadruple recall day, the NHTSA revealed it was opening two investigations into Blue Oval vehicles. One relates to the inadvertent deployment of a seatbelt pre-tensioner, a problem that Ford has previously issued a recall for, but which the NHTSA thinks might also affect 2019-20 Expeditions not included the first time around.
The second investigation also concerns a problem that Ford has already issued a recall over, specifically the degradation of the 12-volt battery. While that doesn’t sound too dangerous, it can happen suddenly while driving and result in a loss of engine power on top of the loss of lights. Earlier this year Ford recalled 456,565 MY 2021-2024 Bronco Sport and MY 2022-2023 Mavericks, but now some Bronco Sport owners who did receive Ford’s software update fix say they still experienced battery failures.
