Detroit, MI — April 26, 2015 — Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) started investigating a fault in Ford Fiesta car door latches, according to USA Today. That initial concern has turned into a full recall for Ford, which has now taken action to fix the affected vehicles. The specific problem lies with door latches that feature a broken part which could lead to doors opening while the car is being driven.
The source says that a total of 389,585 Ford vehicles are being recalled across all of North America, most of which are in the United States. The models include Fiestas and Lincoln MKZ’s built at the company’s Cuautitlán and Hermosillo plants in Mexico, between 2012 and 2013. According to a report the from the NHTSA referenced in the article, Ford has received more than 1,000 warranty claims because of this defect.
In a statement on its website, Ford addressed the physical dangers from loose doors, as well as the current incidents that have been recorded. The door could open even if the driver had previously latched it successfully.
“Ford is aware of two allegations of soreness resulting from an unlatched door bouncing back when the customer attempted to close it, and one accident allegation when an unlatched door swung open and struck an adjacent vehicle as the driver was pulling into a parking space,” the statement said. To solve the problem, dealers are replacing all of the door latches in affected cars, not just the specific ones with bad pawl spring tabs.
An effective recall notice will cover the severity of a situation as well as the specific parts that are the cause. Just because the difficulty can be traced back to one piece in the car doesn’t mean that response actions will be limited to that part alone.
