August 3, 2006

The 2000 Ford Excursion is among the models recalled Thursday. (Ford Motor Co.)

Ford recalled 1.2 million trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans on Thursday amid concerns of potential engine fires, expanding upon one of the largest vehicle recalls in history.

Ford Motor Co. said the recall was tied to the speed control deactivation switch system, which could corrode over time, overheat and catch fire.

The recall involves vehicles fueled by gasoline or natural gas and equipped with speed control, including the 1994-2002 F-250, F-350, F-450 and F-550 F-Super
Duty trucks, 2000-2002 Excursion SUVs, 1994-1996 Econoline vans and 1996-2002 E-450 vans, and 1998 Explorers and Mountaineers. The recall does not involve similar vehicles fueled by diesel.

Last September, Ford recalled 3.8 million pickups and SUVs from the 1994-2002 model years, including the top-selling F-150 pickup, because of the concerns over engine fires. It was the fifth-largest auto industry recall in U.S. history.

In January 2005, the company recalled nearly 800,000 pickups and SUVs from the 2000 model year because of similar issues.

A good article that speaks by itself...

FLAMING FORDS
Fords on Fire
Ford Recall, Part III

By Steve Wilson

Our Action News investigative team is focused this week on flaming Fords, vehicles that catch fire often when they’re not even running and have long been parked. Our investigation now turns to whether Ford has developed a habit of putting corporate profit ahead of customer safety.

Ford has recalled 800,000 popular trucks and SUV’s already, due to a speed control switch that can catch fire and burn down your house if the vehicle is parked in your garage. As we told you Tuesday night, it’s a problem Ford has known about for some time now, and auto safety experts are worried because the recall covers only about 1 in 10 of the models that have this suspect switch built in.

Ford’s own test showed five years ago that these cruise control switches can spit fire, even in a car long parked in the garage with the engine off. This, some say, has already been the result in a few cases. In others, only the vehicles themselves have been destroyed.

Ford says only four models – the 2000 model F-150 Pickups, Expeditions and Navigators and the 2001 model Supercrew Pickups -- are being recalled, because none of the other 416 models built with the same switch design are burning up at the same rate as these.

Clarence Ditlow/Center for Auto Safety: What Ford is doing, is, I mean, they’re hiring statisticians to slice and dice the data.

At the Center for Auto Safety is Washington, Clarence Ditlow says Ford is just up to its old tricks.

Ditlow: There’s clearly a pattern. What Ford is trying to do is to limit the scope of a recall, to develop a containing strategy, or develop a fence around certain vehicles and do a small recall in order to avoid a bigger, more expensive recall.

Ditlow says that’s just what Ford did when it first recalled speed control switches in big sedans back in 1999, leaving many unrecalled because they were not burning up with the same frequency.

Ditlow: Ford took the exact same strategy in the ignition switch fires in the earlier 1990’s, and they tried to do small recalls and ultimately they did an 8-million-vehicle recall.

Remember the scene of a flaming Ford allegedly set afire the other day by a faulty speed control switch?

Action News has acquired footage of a fiery Ford ignited years ago, likely by what Ford ultimately admitted was a faulty ignition switch the automaker built into millions of its cars from the late 70’s to ’92.

Many in the auto safety field like Jeff Morrell remember Ford’s response as a shameful chapter in the company’s history.

Jeff Morrill/Fire Investigator: They said it was only the Canadian vehicles that were affected by the ignition switch fires.

Wilson: Even though the ignition switch was built into the American vehicles just as the same as the Canadians.

Morrill: By part number, it was the exact same switch.

By the time Ford finally extended the recall in this country, millions of other Fords were not included in the recall.

John Dodson/Victims’ Son: My father, his heart was still beating but he wasn’t breathing when they got him out, and my mother never recovered. She was dead on arrival at the hospital.

John’s 72-year-old father, Cecil Dodson, parked his ’82 Ford Crown Victoria in the garage, just under the bedroom. Hours later, at 1:30 in the morning, it caught fire.

John Dodson: And when they woke up, they could see there was some coming from the windows below them.

When Cecil Dodson got to the garage, the car was flaming, and the fire was spreading.

Cecil Dodson/Owned Flaming Ford: I survived.

Daughter: But he has lung damage.

Cecil Dodson: Oh yeah, it took a lot out of me.

It inflicted harm his family says ultimately led to his death not long after he spoke with us.

Six months after the deadly Dodson fire, Ford warned of the faulty ignition switches and recalled millions of many different models in the U.S., but, as we said, not the Dodson’s car or millions of others like it.

John Dodson:Anyway, over the course of two or three years, a lot of documents surfaced that made me very aware that three years before my parents’ house fire, high-ranking Ford officials knew all about the problem and chose not to tell anyone. In a defect like this, not telling, they might as well have shot my mother with a gun.

So Dodson, a mild-mannered resort manager turned real estate broker, went on a mission to ferret out all he could learn about what Ford knew, and when it knew it.

Most of what he learned is outlined in a document attained by Action News. It’s a blistering and thorough documentation of alleged Ford misconduct laid out for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration by State Farm insurance investigators and lawyers. Their cover letter asks:

• Did Ford meet its legal obligations to promptly warn the government and Ford customers of the potentially deadly defect?

• Did Ford improperly limit the scope of the government’s investigation that led to only a limited recall?

• And did Ford not tell all it knew and withhold certain key documents from NHTSA?

The cover letter is followed by chapter and verse and key documents, along with examples that raise serious and troubling questions about Ford’s conduct.

John Dodson: The document that caught my interest years ago that convinced me that they knew is a thing called a Failure Mode Analysis...

That document shows scores resulting from testing on the faulty switch way back in 1978.

John Dodson: Ford’s rating system rates severity 1 through 10 and the ability to detect the problem coming, 1-10. And it said that severity was a 10, the worst possible rating, and the ability to detect it, meaning that you wouldn’t know it was going to happen, they gave it a 10 also.

A number of other internal Ford documents and employee notes reviewed by Action News confirm what State Farm said in its presentation to the government, that Ford:

• clearly "...withheld facts..." highly material to safety concerns, raising concerns that Ford

• "...hindered NHTSA’s ability to protect the public..." by preventing the government from adequately investigating the hazard

And then, when the U.S. recall seemed unavoidable, there’s this: an internal Ford email asking "...where we stand on the population reduction analysis..." In other words, how many vehicles will have to be recalled, and "...what is being done to pare it down."

Remember what Ditlow said about Ford building a fence around only a few defective models to limit any recall? A document confirms it, stating that Ford will work to "...define a defendable fence around certain vehicles/model years..." the company will recall.

There are also the internal memos, which outline supporting rationale Ford will use to avoid recalling millions of cars with the allegedly defective switch.

Ditlow: What they’re doing is they’re trading profits for lives, and that’s not a fair trade.

John Dodson: I see retirees, a lot of retirees, elderly, poor people driving these cars around still, and they have no idea.

Right here in Michigan, 14,000 unrecalled Crown Victorias with the same suspect ignition switch are still on the road, including one still babied by it’s owner, who drives it to play golf in nice weather and then pulls it into his garage every time he returns home.

John Dodson: I always wonder if they’re going to pull them into their garage and go to sleep at night...

Wilson: And not wake up.

Dodson: And not wake up.

And that’s why John Dodson and his lawyers Bud DeLuca and Marion Weizenbaum have labored for more than 10 years now, in a David and Goliath battle to get Ford in front of a jury to hold them accountable.

Wilson to Dodson: What are you going to do, beat your head against the wall for years to get into a courtroom and spend thousands and thousands of dollars against somebody who has no bottom to their pocket, who will eventually...

Dodson: It’s terrible. That’s true. That’s their game plan, and they have everything possible to wear us down to make us give up, make it too expensive, just make us forget it. But we’re not.

Ford claimed in an e-mail to Action News Chief Investigator Steve Wilson this week that the Dodson case has been derailed. Not true – it’s awaiting trial, and you should also know that after a government investigation? Action News has acquired the agreement where Ford paid the government $425,000 to settle claims the car company did indeed violate federal law hiding the truth about the faulty ignition switches.

Special Investigative Reports

By Steve Wilson

The Action News Investigators have confirmed reports from Ford owners that several models have burst into flames, many while parked in garages with the engine off, sometimes destroying homes. Ford has already announced a recall of about 800,000 vehicles with a suspect speed control switch but Chief Investigative Reporter Steve Wilson has learned 10 times as many may be at risk.

You will need REALPLAYER to view these videos. Get it here!

Part I - Explains The Problem
Click for story and video

Part II - Reveals Widespread Problem
Click for story

Part III - Evidence Ford Covered Up Similar Problem Before
Click for story and video

Ford owners you have to check this out for your safety.
Some individuals badly hurt and some deaths. Initial evidence points out the faulty cruise control switch which is on at all time. This switch has to be disabled and/or rectify. How can any design put Ford’s customers at such risk as we have stated many times in the past: bottom line first, damn the customers… Is there “Ford’s team song”? Let all the skeptics criticize us again for our true predictions. Right on the money again…. Hey Bill! Hey Joe….

How much is a human life worth?

Ford’s view….

This article exhibits Ford’s complete disregard for vehicular passengers putting cost saving measures as priorities to the cost of human lives and sufferings. See below showing Ford’s unconscionable attitude which remains today. Bill Ford Jr. is diluting himself thinking that he drinks from the Holy Grail??? How can he and his cohorts live with themselves?

See article here. A classic flaming Ford story.

Revelations in this article points out that the Pinto improvement of the explosive fuel tanks could have been made on two occasions.

1- 5.08$ cost per unit.
2- 11$ cost per unit.

These suggestions were rejected by Ford.

We ask this one question: Is this right?????

More profit -------? Ford

Or

Deaths ------------? Customers

Cracking Intake Manifolds UPDATE!
Here’s some information that we received from a concerned citizen. It seems that Ford Motor Company Agreed to a Court approved settlement regarding Cracking Intake Manifolds.
It looks like Ford won’t have to pay if people don’t know about it…… (see how crooked they are….)

There is a 90 days time frame to go to a dealer and get a refund for the repairs. The problem is that the dealers are telling the customers to wait for the official letter which Ford Motor Co is not sending out. (see how dealerships are guilty by association….)

The clock started December 16, 2005.
There’s a potential loss of 450 Million dollars for Ford if all concerned owners of Ford vehicle affected by the Cracking intake manifold get their claim in as soon as possible.

Again Ford Motor Company misrepresenting horrendous situations…

Ford free engine repairs not extended to Canada, says Lemon-Aid author

Toronto, Ontario – While 1.8 million Ford owners in the U.S. will receive free engine intake manifold repairs announced December 16, the offer will not be extended to Canadian owners, says Phil Edmonston, consumer advocate and author of Lemon-Aid Car Guide.

"Ford USA will pay about $100 million US to American owners who will get $735 US each and a seven-year retroactive warranty with unlimited mileage in their Christmas stocking," Edmonston says. "Canadians get a lump of coal."

For over a decade, Lemon-Aid has chided Ford for stonewalling engine intake manifold complaints and hiding the existence of a "secret warranty" slush fund. Edmonston wants the Canadian automaker to give Canadians an equal amount of compensation and to extend the reimbursement period until December 31, 2006.

Vehicles affected in the American settlement use the 4.6-litre V8 engine and include 1996-2001 Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car; 1997 Mercury Cougar, Ford Thunderbird and Ford Mustang; some Mustangs from 1998 to 2001; and some Ford Explorers from 2002.