Ford Emissions Warranty Lawsuit Dismissed With Prejudice

Last year, a judge denied Ford's motion to dismiss a class-action lawsuit filed against it - Hugo De Anda v. Ford Motor Company, Inc., et al, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California - claiming that the automaker failed to provide a required emissions warranty for the vehicles it sells in that state. That was a win for the plaintiffs in the case, but it didn't last long, as now, the lawsuit has been dismissed entirely.

According to Car Complaints, the plaintiff's individual claims have been dismissed by a judge with prejudice, meaning that they can't refile those claims. However, other customers may still sue Ford for the same problems, it seems, as they were dismissed without prejudice. At the moment, it's unclear why the court made this decision, but the original plaintiff sued after his 2018 Ford Mustang began "jerking" and a check engine light came on.

The plaintiff took their Mustang to the dealership, which informed him that it would need to disassemble the transmission to fix it, but noted that he would have to pay a diagnostic fee, as well as shell out the money for needed repairs. "Ford unlawfully denied warranty coverage for the transmission repair, which involved high-priced emission parts that should have been covered under Ford’s 7-year/70,000-mile California Emissions Warranty," the lawsuit stated. The plaintiff was represented by Pomerantz LLP, Frontier Law Center, and The Law Office Of Robert Starr.

The lawsuit argued that while a normal emissions warranty spans three years or 50k miles, higher-priced parts like transmissions should be covered by Ford's longer, seven-year, 70k mile warranty due to state law. "California requires vehicles to be equipped with an onboard diagnostic system which 'shall be capable of detecting malfunctions of the [vehicle’s] monitored emission systems, illuminating a malfunction indicator light (MIL) to notify the vehicle operator of detected malfunctions,'” the filing reads.