Ford Responds To Report About Air Bag Recall Repair Fallout

As Ford Authority reported earlier today, a recent report from the Detroit Free Press indicates that somewhere around 41,600 Ford vehicles dating back to the 2004 model year may be affected by airbags “where we believe there could be issues with repairs,” according to Blue Oval spokesperson T.R. Reid. The automaker estimates that it has thus far fixed around 11 percent of those vehicles, and just 1.5 percent were found to actually have a problem, and it has also reportedly fined dealers that didn’t perform this work properly. Now, Ford has reached out to Ford Authority with comments addressing some aspects of the Free Press report.

“The article says that Ford does not know which vehicles may not have been repaired at all. We do know that 40,000 customers had work completed by dealership technicians who submitted false claims on other recalls. That’s why we initiated program 22B05, asking customers who had recall repairs done by these technicians to bring their vehicles in for inspection out of an abundance of caution,” said Ford spokesperson Maria Buczkowski.

“The article implies that Sara Morgan was injured by a Takata airbag that was incorrectly repaired. That is not true,” Buczkowski added, referring to the passenger of a 2007 Ford Mustang who lost an eye, suffered damage to the other eye, and has been impacted by hearing loss and tinnitus after that vehicle’s airbag discharged shrapnel into her face during a low-speed accident. “The vehicle did not have the passenger airbag recall completed yet. Ford provided numerous notifications to the customer about the open recall. This was not a situation where a dealership claimed it did a passenger airbag repair but did not complete the repair properly.”

“The article incorrectly insinuates that 232,000 vehicles recalled under 23S08 still pose a Takata airbag related risk to customers,” Buczkowski noted. “That is not true. These vehicles in Recall 23S08 had the Takata airbag inflators successfully removed, so there is no risk of a Takata airbag rupture. Ford is inspecting the repairs to ensure the new inflator was correctly installed and that the passenger air bag deploys as intended in the event of a crash. The Detroit Free Press conflated unrelated programs and information to draw inaccurate conclusions. Our goal is always to do things right for customers in the first place and, when they aren’t, correct them as quickly as possible. That’s what we did with the programs mischaracterized in this story.”

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