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Corrections and clarifications: This story, republished by The Detroit Free Press, has been revised to include the main points about the 2023 recall of the 2004-06 Ranger pickups.
Ford Motor Co. se in the midst of a complex “recall,” re-inspecting more than a quarter of a million cars after the company discovered sloppy paints and fake invoices from dealership technicians that required replacement of harmful Takata airbags.
Some consumers whose repair records erroneously reflect maintenance that has never been completed are at risk of having devices, which can explode without caution and send shrapnel to vehicle occupants. Others, drivers of some Ranger pickup trucks, may have improperly installed airbags that may not deploy in the event of an accident, endangering passengers.
An investigation via the Free Press reviewed internal corporate documents, broker memos, federal regulatory filings and court documents, and it appears that Ford fined some brokers whose repair technicians rated the automaker for replacing Takata airbags despite installing the devices or failing to perform the work. A federal complaint alleges that Ford caused a disturbance by loosening repair regulations to allow unqualified technicians to perform maintenance tasks temporarily, an allegation the automaker strongly denies.
Drivers left dealerships thinking their airbags were safe. However, without further inspection, they and their front-seat passengers are still at risk of excruciating injuries, or even death, every time they are on the road, as exemplified by the case. of a Texas woman who lost her left eye in a low-speed crash in 2020. Sara Mae Morgan settled a lawsuit with Ford in 2022 and with the dealership in 2023. He described to Free Press the life-threatening injuries resulting from the crash. of a Mustang whose owners had taken the car to upgrade the airbag.
Part of the challenge is that no one — drivers, Ford, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — knows exactly which cars haven’t been properly repaired. Among the tricky situations is the fact that Ford has to track down owners of vintage cars. like the 2004 models and re-inspect them.
“I can’t sleep at night when I think about this,” the whistleblower told The Free Press. “It makes me physically sick. “
Ford told the Free Press that it is committed to locating and repairing the cars and called the challenge isolated.
The majority of the cars (nearly 232,000) are Ranger pickup trucks, for which Ford issued an official recall in 2023 due to the threat of passenger-side airbag installation. In this case, the Takata airbags have been replaced, but most of the installed airbags would possibly not deploy in the event of an accident, endangering passengers.
Another 41,600 Ford cars of various models “where there may be problems solving” will be inspected again, Ford spokesman T. R. said. In those cases, Ford’s records show that the airbag replacement was done, but through technicians who cut back on some recall work.
The whistleblower claims that the figures are much higher, based on data provided through resellers.
The challenge was so serious that Ford fined some dealers thousands of dollars after making the discovery. Ford may not disclose how many dealers have been fined or how much, but Reid said the fallout “was significant enough to get their attention and make it transparent. “that the habit was not acceptable. “
A Ford document reviewed via Free Press warned dealers of $10,000 fines per violation, and dealers told Free Press that some fines were as high as six figures. One dealership, whose name Free Press does not jeopardize its relationship with Ford, called it a “cash obstruction” meant to offset some of Ford’s large recall costs.
Ford’s re-inspection program for about 42,000 vehicles, which are not indexed as a formal safety recall, will run through March 2027, according to documents filed with federal safety regulators. Reid told the Free Press in early February that about 11 percent of that work was completed. He said only about 1. 5 percent of new inspections revealed problems with the Takata’s replacement.
Ford sold millions of models of which all 41,600 examples were extracted, adding Fusions, Edges, Mustangs and more. Reid said the company found no reason to test a larger sample of those models, though he said in interviews and emails that the 1. 5% error rate can be almost general for any repair.
Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Automobile Safety, said more cars will be inspected again.
“I think Ford wants to go back and do a full audit to make sure that no one has gotten a fake repair from Takata and that nothing is missing,” Brooks said. “They have to locate all the cars that haven’t gotten the right repair. “They are the ones who are ultimately responsible, they are the consumers who have presented their vehicle to be fixed and have not fixed it.
“After years of exposure, the rate of airbag failures skyrockets and becomes incredibly dangerous,” Brooks said. “If someone suffers a repair, they are at risk. There’s no doubt about that. You literally have a ticking time bomb that can explode at any moment.
Most consumers are familiar with Takata’s airbag recalls. But this is more insidious because consumers think they’ve solved the harmful challenge. Repair records for your vehicles imply that the challenge is solved. But in reality, the danger gets worse as the days go by as airbags age. .
These repair issues are related to the largest auto recall in U. S. history. The U. S. Navy has found 67 million Takata airbag inflators, whose steel cartridges degrade with time, heat and humidity and can, without warning, explode. Takata airbag explosions in the U. S. U. S. troops have killed 26 people and wounded them with sharp steel fragments to the face, neck and chest since the late 1990s.
The threat of death and deformation increases over time for the millions of cars that still want to be repaired.
Ford was one of 19 automakers forced to recall Takata airbags. In Ford’s case, that’s about 4. 4 million airbag inflators in about 3. 95 million cars, Ford spokeswoman Maria Buczkowski said.
In the re-inspection programs, uncovered in figures provided through Ford, about 60 of the cars re-examined were found to have defective airbag replacements. If the 1. 5% error rate were valid for the 270,000 cars designated for reinspection, approximately 4,000 of them have airbag defects that should have been corrected.
The number is small, but those 4,000 vehicles can have devastating consequences: if improperly installed replacement airbags fail to deploy or if unreplaced Takata devices explode.
In June 2020, Morgan climbed into the passenger seat of a 2007 Ford Mustang, buckled up her seatbelt and prepared to accompany her boyfriend to his assignment as a waitress at Smithhart’s Texas Grill in South Houston. According to the lawsuit he filed and subsequently, a slight snag on the fender at less than 22 km/h caused the airbag to explode which sent shrapnel to his face.
His left eye is gone. His right eye is damaged. He suffers from hearing loss and tinnitus.
It shouldn’t have happened: The groom’s relatives took the Mustang to a dealership in October 2018 to upgrade the faulty Takata airbags. But the vehicle’s repair records, received via Free Press, show that only the driver’s side airbag was repaired.
“Now I want to see a counselor to help me with my intellectual health, or PTSD, as a result of the accident,” Morgan told The Free Press. “It’s heartbreaking. I’m just looking for a way to deal with it. “.
“It’s like a feeling of grief, what I feel when I look back. Just pain, honestly. And I’ll have flashbacks. “
Morgan, now 23, of Pearland, Texas, said he lost count of his surgeries after a dozen. Take medication to sleep. You are taking medicine for migraines. He is now taking medication for depression. He finds it difficult to be in public. She no longer dives underwater, preoccupied with her eye sockets.
“It’s an airbag,” Morgan said, pausing. “That’s what it’s meant to protect you in the event of an accident. And it can seriously and drastically replace your life in a matter of seconds. “
After locating evidence of poor recall work, Ford in 2020 asked express dealers to check certain protection solutions. Ford says the audit, called the dealership’s incomplete recall repair process, was triggered when it found that some technicians had not finished the task of removing the door latch. they had billed the automaker.
The audit also asked dealers to check airbag paints and seat belt components, according to a corporate filing. The audit focused on the technicians whose paintings they reported; The company won’t say how many employees were involved.
As a result of the audit, Ford wrote to its roughly 3000 Lincoln and Ford dealers on March 28, 2022, saying that the company had decided that cars reported through dealers as repaired as part of the Takata airbag protection recall may not have been repaired.
This letter asked dealers to inspect cars in the shop and make sure the airbags were properly installed. The re-inspection was classified as a “quality inspection program,” which differs from a formal withdrawal. An NHTSA representative said the quality inspection program “is an audit to ensure that recall maintenance is being performed and that this and other service systems have been conducted as directed. While there is no reporting requirement, Ford updates the company on the progress of those systems in meetings.
The program includes the 2004-11 Ranger pickup trucks. In the spring of 2023, the 2004-06 Rangers were officially recalled for a new airbag inspection. Enough errors were discovered among the Rangers in the paints that followed the March 2022 memo about last year’s recall.
Beyond the Ranger, Ford’s 2022 memo said the cars to be re-inspected included some 2007-10 Ford Edges; 2006-12 Ford merger; 2005-06 Ford GT; 2005-14 Ford Mustang; 2007-10 Lincoln MKX; 2006-12 Lincoln Zephyr/MKZ; and Mercurio Milan 2006-11.
Letters were sent to owners of affected vehicles in April 2022 saying, “A Ford Motor Company quality audit has revealed that the broker technician who repaired your vehicle may not have completed some of the maintenance for which the broker filed claims.
Thayne Hansen, Ford’s director of service engineering operations for the markets group, called the new controls a “recall of a recall” in an interview with Free Press.
A whistleblower complaint about protection issues, filed with federal protection regulators in 2019 and received via Free Press, says the danger arose, in part, from Ford’s resolve to supersede technical education requirements.
Ford, who denies converting the rules, and the whistleblower offer other accounts of what happened:
The whistleblower, who Free Press is not calling due to the person’s concern about damaging his business with Ford, alleges that in 2019, Ford allowed uneducated personnel to perform airbag repairs.
A follow-up letter sent in July 2022 through the whistleblower’s attorney to senior NHTSA officials said, “Ford Motor Company deliberately provoked bad actors and egregious moves by deviating from its own policies. “
Takata airbags were so common that, once their danger was discovered, they may not be replaced quickly. NHTSA has set a timeline that is still being completed, with 7. 1 million of the 67 million recalled airbag inflators still needing to be replaced. replaced, according to the NHTSA website.
In late 2018, around the same time that the Ford Mustang that later injured Morgan was taken to the shop for airbags repairs, Ford came under pressure from federal safety regulators to speed up Takata repairs. Dealers were already battered by recall and warranty work. , with Ford being the second-largest automaker in terms of recalls in 2017-2018.
The Free Press received a document from Ford in November 2018 informing them that a “new Service Assignment Flexibility Program will update the existing Technical Competency Performance Waiver Program. “
“Use the program to outsource paint repair to experienced/qualified technicians who may not yet be certified,” the document reads.
To catch up on Takata updates, the whistleblower complaint states, Ford has comfortable criteria for who can perform recall repairs, allowing “Quick Lane” personnel who perform routine work, such as oil changes, tire rotations or brake pad upgrades, to now upgrade airbags.
This, the whistleblower claims, led to sloppy work.
Ford argues that, contrary to the whistleblower’s claims, the company has not updated the criteria related to who can upgrade Takata airbags. Reid and Buczkowski said the 2019 policy adjustments concerned warranty work, which they separate from recall repairs.
Reid said in an email that “the technical requirements for carrying out the work of the withdrawal service have changed since 2018 and beyond. “
Distributors interviewed via Free Press saw things differently.
“The rules are so vague that it’s not unusual for the same vehicle to go into two other outlets (brokers) and one says it’s a warranty solution and the other doesn’t. It’s a matter of interpretation,” said one longtime runner. told The Free Press, asking that the broker’s call not be divulged to avoid backlash from headquarters.
“Ford’s legal counsel’s workplace is incredibly conservative. I assume that under warranty he writes the recovery commands and sends them to the legal counsel’s job site, and then anything that might in all likelihood corner Ford is removed,” the agent said. .
Three dealerships in other parts of the U. S. U. S. Fish and Drug Administration told the Free Press that Ford technicians maintain and guarantee recalls or service announcements to paint like everyone else does.
“A cashier-service action is an umbrella term that encompasses all of this,” said one dealership. “Ford is the customer. Ford determines how much you get paid for it. And the technicians don’t agree with the process.
“In each and every garage I’ve seen, technicians do the work, whatever it is: customer payment, insurance, or warranty. If you were to ask a technician if a recall guarantee works, they would say yes. That’s nine out of ten technologies. In either case, Ford determines how long it takes, Ford tells them how to do it, and Ford tells them which portions to use.
The dealership, echoing the whistleblower, said, “The technicians are fixing things that want to be fixed. A recall is a warranty and a technical service bulletin is a warranty. The reminder of the door latches. . . suddenly, Ford has reduced reimbursement rates. . . The technicians were dissatisfied, so they cut the job short. I never imagined they would do that in reference to Takata. . . But it is clear that there are some very dissatisfied technicians.
Ford slashed the fees of its repair technicians in the years leading up to the airbag repair delay, angering many technicians and prompting a petition in change. org in November 2019 that garnered 3,950 Ford technical signatures.
“The next time your car spends several days in a dealership and you wonder why, it’s because the few of us left can’t get the car out of all the paints,” William Stox, a technician at the Ford dealership, told Free Press. “The discounts in our painting age, combined with the fact that the warranty accounts for 60-70% of our paint load, have led to a generational shortage. . . It is immoral and unethical.
Ford says technical certification is mandatory for airbag repair and that NHTSA has emphasized any adjustments to account for increased risk.
Federal regulators have suggested automakers be artistic and “find tactics to get things done,” said Hansen, Ford’s director of service engineering operations. “Under the direction of the NHTSA monitor, we are encouraged; I would say the stimulus would be candy. “Word: They encouraged us to look for new tacticsArray. . . to make further repairs. »
Reid said, “To more temporarily attract more consumers for testing and repairs, it was necessary for everyone, the brands and NHTSA, to think differently. And that’s what we did.
The dealership’s workers who regularly carried out the responsibilities of the scheme followed illustrated step-by-step instructions.
“In 2019, we reminded them (dealers) that recall maintenance, targeted maintenance, can be done through any of their technicians,” Reid told Free Press. “Rappel maintenance is structured and designed in a way that makes them undeniable to perform. “.
“Because they’re not diagnosing a problem, they’re looking to make sure it’s installed correctly,” Reid said. “This can be shown with descriptions and graphics so they can do it if it’s done correctly. “
The main explanation for why Ford “reminded” dealers of the protocol in 2019, Reid said, “is that they were starting to perform recall maintenance in general. “
Ford reiterated to dealers that “any technician has the skill to do this,” Buczkowski said of the airbag replacement. “Maintenance isn’t as confusing as I think dealers say. “
Still, when it came to the 2004-06 Ranger trucks recalled last year, the repair technicians “didn’t follow the repair procedures we sent them,” Buczkowski said. “They didn’t carry out the orders correctly. “
Hansen said the solutions simply involve replacing the entire inflator or airbag, if necessary, and keeping the airbag itself or the formula that controls it.
“If a user can follow the instructions, they can do it,” he said. “It’s not hard. “
Others argue that replacing airbags, which they describe as deceptively complex electrical and chemical packages, requires expertise.
Stephen Ridella, then director of vehicle crash resistance studies at NHTSA, warned in 2015 about the difficulty of replacing Takata. Ridella said in a webinar, “These parts of the inflator are complex and unique. . . Only someone with specialized education deserves to update those parts. “
Michael Crossen is a Certified Master Automotive Technician of Excellence at Consumer Reports and a former Certified Master Automotive Technician at Mercedes-Benz.
“The driver’s airbag is very difficult to upgrade, as long as protective precautions are followed,” Crossen told the Free Press. “The passenger airbag is much more complicated to upgrade. Most expert technicians can also upgrade the driver’s airbag by five to 10 Minutos. La passenger airbag can take hours. You may want to remove pieces from the board or the entire deck from the board.
“Every time I’m faced with an airbag, I take it very seriously. Airbags are probably second only to seat belts in terms of crash protection. You’ve been given to make sure you’re not rushing,” Crossen said. If I were a customer, I’d like to think that the technician who uses a protection formula on my vehicle enjoys more than just oil changes. “
What happens when an airbag deploys is complex. Sensors in cars stumble into collisions, and those sensors send an electrical signal to the cartridge that a colorless salt called sodium azide, and the electrical signal detonates a small amount of a flaming compound, Joseph Merola, professor of chemistry and associate dean of Virginia Tech’s College of Arts and Sciences, he wrote in Scientific American in 1999. The heat released through this ignition triggers the breakdown of sodium azide, which is toxic, and the generation of nitrogen as fuel to fill the airbag in seconds.
Crossen told the Free Press in mid-February, “When a sprint airbag is deployed, you have to upgrade the sprint because it breaks it. When an airbag deploys, it’s a violent event. “
Brooks, of the Center for Automotive Safety, said other automakers, such as Toyota and Honda, have gone to lengths to make sure they have not only achieved the highest recall repair rates imaginable, but have also told vehicle owners in some cases that they deserve to park cars and don’t drive them until the airbags are replaced.
Toyota issued a driving ban warning in January for 50,000 cars between 2003 and 2005, Brooks said. “They know how harmful it is. It’s not one of those security flaws where there’s a one in 10,000 chance. Once the chemicals in the inflator are exposed, they face significant failure rates. That’s why it’s so urgent to get those fixes right. “
In May 2019, Honda recalled 19,000 cars after identifying a problem similar to Ford’s. The company told NHTSA, “A national audit of the build quality of cars repaired through service technicians who are no longer contracted through Acura or Honda dealers prior to May 2018. “It found that “front passenger airbag inflators may have been improperly installed at some dealerships. “NHTSA’s protection bulletin at the time stated that airbag replacement would only be carried out through “qualified technicians with the proper tools, equipment, and training. . . »
A Hoover, Alabama, service technician stationed at an internal Ford site in 2023 criticized the use of Quick Lane technicians to repair paints because replacing airbags requires more than “any trained monkey” can do. And a senior master technician in Great Bend, Kansas, noted that Ford allowed dealership managers to make use of their capabilities, but then they were punished if something went wrong. Free Press reviewed the comments.
NHTSA said in an email to the Free Press that regulators are collaborating with the automaker to bring the protection factor into compliance with the 2022 Quality Inspection Program. The firm said it does not acknowledge or speak publicly about whistleblower court cases or the potential prestige of an investigation. The whistleblower said he last had contact with regulators in 2022.
After asking dealers to get creative and use more staff to handle the Takata recall work, Ford’s airbag replacements have accelerated dramatically. The company attributed the increase in maintenance to the availability of parts.
But unrest erupted that led to the announcement in March 2020 of an audit program into allegations of suspicious maintenance by some technicians.
Reid told the Free Press that the audits first focused on recall-like maintenance of the door latch, but revealed other issues that led to a second review of Takata’s airbag replacements and seat belt components.
This audit, dubbed the Dealership Recall Incomplete Repair Process, revealed enough faulty maintenance for the company to begin its ongoing five-year reinspection program.
Ford may not release the full results, but the Free Press reviewed a document it presented to an agent who, as part of the audit, inspected 137 vehicles and found 61 incomplete airbag repairs.
The most comprehensive audit of technicians whose work had been examined.
Ford noted that “in one of the results of this audit, we learned that 98. 5% of Takata airbag replacements through those technicians were done from the beginning. “
Takata’s recall and reinspection program has added paint to an automaker that has been battered in recent years by billions of dollars in recalls and warranty paint, causing only a delay at dealers but, because of Ford’s rebate limit, making less money than regular mechanics. paints.
Ford has issued more recalls than its competitors. Some dealers warn consumers to expect a months-long wait for repairs, and some even suggest going to a non-Ford shop, consumers from other parts of the country told the Free Press.
Certified technicians were already in Ford’s motherhouse heading into 2019 due to 2017 limits on reimbursement for recalled repairs. The whistleblower told the Free Press that irregularities similar to the Takata repairs may have been predicted and prevented without issue.
In March 2023, Ford sent a letter to dealers urging them, as it did in 2019, to “be artistic in their technique for wearing down Takata airbag repairs. “Ford referred dealers to examples of artistic techniques, known as “Non-Traditional Repair Approaches” in the dealership’s newsletter.
“Maybe that’s not the way they organize and manage the service in their workshops,” Reid said. “I’m guessing it’s because dealers regularly outsource paints to their service technicians. Generally speaking, they were also accumulating a backlog of warranty maintenance that they may simply not be operating in their department stores due to their capacity. . . Ultimately, the delivery of the service depends on the distributors. They know the other people in the workshop and know their skills.
As the re-inspection program continues, affected car owners may simply be driving with an explosive device that can malfunction at any time.
Two Ford dealers told the Free Press that many vehicle owners are unfazed by the recall of notices they receive from automakers now, and Takata’s warnings have indeed faded into a dull buzz after all those years.
Sara Mae Morgan reached a confidential settlement with Ford in 2022 and with the dealership in February 2023, with Houston attorney Rob Ammons, who has done significant work related to airbags.
This is Ammons’ client, Air Force Lt. Stephanie Erdman, who testified before Congress in 2014 after being blinded in one eye by airbag shrapnel while driving a 2002 Honda Civic. Today , Erdman appears on Ford’s website, urging consumers to get their airbags repaired.
“We thought we had solved this challenge, but now we’re learning that there are no checks and balances between Ford and dealers,” Ammons told Free Press. “The longer they stay in the car, the more likely they are to deploy unchecked. “”It’s not like a wonderful wine that gets even more wonderful over time. “
He noted in mid-February, “If we don’t remove all those airbags from those cars and upgrade them with safer bags, we’re going to see more breakages and catastrophic injuries. “
Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-618-1034 or phoward@freepress. com. Follow her on X on @phoebesaid
This article was printed in the Detroit Free Press: Faulty Takata Airbag Repairs Put Thousands of Ford Drivers at Risk