Ford Motor Co, on Wednesday, said that it has been recalling about 1.5 million Ford and Lincoln vehicles in North America for a gear shift problem which caused at least five accidents.
The automaker announced three recalls in total for different safety concerns.
The major of the three issues was an unintended downshift to first gear without warning, and was found in F-150 pickups, while the recall will cover about 1.26 million in the United States whereas 221,000 trucks are on the roads in Canada. The company will start notifying the customers in next month and dealers will update the powertrain control software of select 2011 to 2013 Ford F-150 with six-speed automatic transmission.
Earlier in March 2016, about 153,000 select 2011-2012 Ford F-150, Lincoln Navigator and Ford Expedition vehicles were recalled by the Ford. Though the recall was for a similar transmission downshift problem, but the root cause in that earlier problem was different than in the new recall, according to Monique Brentley, Ford spokeswoman.
The second recall is on select 2017 to 2019 Lincoln Continental vehicles, which will cover about 28,200 vehicles and door latch assemblies of all four door will replaced by the dealers as a problem with silicon containment in the door latch has came into the knowledge of the company. The problem can prevent the door latch’s full engagement resultantly there is a possibility of door opening while driving, but Ford has not in the knowledge of any accident connected to this recall.
The third recall will cover about 4,200 select 2019 Lincoln Nautilus, Lincoln Navigator and Ford Mustang vehicles with a possibility of having a defective instrument panel cluster assemblies which could show blank instrument cluster upon start of vehicle. The dealers will update the software to eliminate the issue. Ford is also not aware of any crashes connected to this recall either.
