April 26, 1996
Ford Announces Recall of 8.7 Million Cars and Trucks
By KEITH BRADSHER
ETROIT -- Yielding to public pressure and a series of class-action lawsuits, Ford Motor Co. on Thursday announced the largest recall by a single automaker, asking that the owners of 8.7 million cars and trucks bring them to dealers for replacement of ignition switches that might cause fires.
The recall covers the bulk of Ford's vehicles for 1988 through 1992 model years as well as a few early 1993 model cars.
The company had received complaints that short circuits in the switches had started at least 1,100 fires in the United States and Canada. Jon F. Harmon, a spokesman for Ford, said the company had heard of 21 injuries, two of them serious, related to these fires in the United States. None were fatal, Harmon said. There have also been complaints of nine injuries in Canada in recent years, none serious, he said.
Richard S. Schiffrin, the lead lawyer for eight class-action lawsuits seeking the recall, said that while he was not aware of any deaths associated with the fires, some families had lost their homes when vehicles caught fire while parked in garages.
Ford had resisted a recall for several years, through three federal investigations. An internal company memorandum, dated Feb. 16, 1995, and distributed to reporters in recent weeks by lawyers suing Ford, shows that the company was already aware then of a "very small potential for ignition switch fires on certain vehicles." The memorandum warned of "a potential for adverse publicity at any time."
The publicity that Ford feared began last November, when Canadian safety authorities ordered a recall of 248,000 Ford cars and trucks there. At least nine class-action lawsuits in the United States have been filed since then, accompanied by a spate of news coverage.
Schiffrin said Ford would not have recalled the vehicles without the lawsuits and public attention. Harmon, the Ford spokesman, said that the lawsuits had made no difference but that news articles on the fires provoked a spurt of complaints that helped the company isolate the problem.
The ignition switches involved in the recall were manufactured for Ford by the United Technologies Corp., and were installed in 26 million Ford vehicles for the 1983 through 1993 model years. Ford is recalling only a third of the vehicles because of an engineering study that found a problem only in vehicles that use a lot of electrical power for heater fans and other components, and that have ignition switches produced after May 1987.
Michael B. Brownlee, the chief investigator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said a Ford engineering study presented to federal officials had shown that a 1987 design change in the ignition switches may have made thems more likely to short out.
Michael Scholl, a spokesman for United Technologies, which is based in Hartford, Conn., confirmed that the company made the switches but said the it believed that the switches performed properly "in a normal operating environment." Scholl declined to elaborate, but Harmon said there was some evidence that the switches had particular problems in cold climates, like Canada's.
Schiffrin said that by excluding two-thirds of the vehicles with the United Technologies switches, Ford's recall did not cover about 20 percent of the fires that he had heard about. As a result, a group of class-action lawyers will probably continue their effort in Federal District Court in Camden, N.J., to force Ford to recall all the vehicles, he said.
Turning a key in a car or truck ignition switch causes a metal plate about four inches down in the steering column to slide across several electrical contacts. A fire can start if the space between the electrical contacts is so narrow that if a plastic barrier between them deteriorates arcing occurs and a short circuit develops, as seems to have happened in some Ford vehicles, Brownlee said.
In the largest auto industry recall American and Japanese automakers asked last year that 8.8 million Japanese-made vehicles be brought in for repairs to seat belt buckles manufactured by Takata, a Japanese producer. Federal safety officials said Thursday's recall was the largest by a single automaker.
Ford officials refused to estimate on Thursday how much the recall would cost the company. Dealers have been charging customers $50 to $100 apiece to replace the switches, but Ford pays a lower rate to dealers. If half to three-quarters of the vehicles are brought in for repair then the recall could cost the company $200 million to $300 million.
Ford is likely to pay for part or all of the repair cost out of its existing reserves for warranty work and recalls, said David M. Garrity, an auto analyst at Smith Barney. Harmon said Ford had asked during previous, similar recalls that the suppliers pay part of the cost of the recall and may do so again now and added that because of the reserves, the recall would not affect Ford's earnings.
Ford came under extra public pressure to recall the vehicles when Debra and Edward G[...] in Marietta, Ga., set up a page on the Internet for the Association of Flaming Ford Owners after their 1985 Ford Ranger caught fire last November while parked in their driveway.
Ms. G[...], who runs a business that creates Internet pages for companies, said she was encouraged to set up the page by Ralph Hoar, a consultant to Schiffrin, whom she contacted after seeing a story on the syndicated television program "Inside Edition" on Feb. 8.
The fire itself was dramatic, happening eight hours after the Ford Ranger had last been driven, Ms. G[...] said. "It was sitting quietly in the driveway about two in the morning -- my husband heard the horn going and the lights flashing and we don't have a burglar alarm," she recalled.
While a metal salvage company towed the Ranger away a week later for scrap, Ms. G[...] added, "there's a big hunk of rubber still out in the driveway and hunks of molten aluminum" that has cooled since the fire but remains stuck to the pavement.
Harmon at Ford said that the company would individually review requests for compensation for property damage. The G[...]'s Ranger was not covered by Thursday's recall.
Other Places of Interest on the Web
Association of Flaming Ford Owners' web site
Copyright 1996 The New York Times Company