California Lemon Law Lawyer Blog

Christopher Jensen reports in the NY Times Wheels blog, about Ford having recalled 135,000 F-150 pickup trucks because the driver’s air bag may inadvertently deploy. This seems like an extensive recall, but Jensen points out that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is calling for 10 times as many vehicles to be recalled.

The agency is saying there are 1.3 million F-150s that may be affected. If recalled, it would be the largest such number in NHTSA's history of recalls.

The agency accuses Ford of “skewing” data to downplay the severity of the problem. Ford made a midmodel-year change in 2006 to the air-bag wiring assembly that contributed to the inadvertent deployments thereby implicitly conceding knowledge of the problem.

Under federal regulations, when an automaker knows of a safety defect, it must notify the agency within five working days or face civil penalties. If Ford were to concede that a safety defect existed in 2006, it could face significant fines.

A driver may lose control of the vehicle after being startled by an air-bag deployment, which NHTSA says “sounds like a gunshot.”

The federal safety agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is investigating stalling complaints in 2009-2010 VWs and Audis equipped with 2-liter 4-cylinder turbodiesel engines.

The agency has 160 complaints of engine stalling or loss of power related to the high pressure fuel pump in these models.

In a news conference today, Ray Hood, head of the US Dept of Transportaton, announced that a federal study has concluded that software flaws did not cause Toyotas to suddenly accelerate. The investigation found no evidence for any causes beyond the widely reported sticking accelerator pedals and floor mat entrapment problems. Toyota has recalled over 11 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles worldwide to fix the pedals and possibility of mats riding up over the accelerators.

To reduce the incidents of unintended acceleration, the federal safety agency said in the future it may order manufacturers to build in brake override systems that allow the brake to stop the vehicle even if the accelerator is being pressed at the same time. Toyota is currently beginning to install such systems in its new vehicles.