U.S. launches probe of Ford Escape for possible unintended acceleration
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NHTSA has received 99 complaints about unintended acceleration in older Ford Escape models, including 13 crashes, eight injuries and one death. |
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WASHINGTON (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co.'s Escape SUV is under investigation by U.S. auto-safety regulators for possible unintended acceleration after a January crash that killed a 17-year-old girl in Arizona.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is probing Escapes and identical Mazda Tributes including 2002 models like the one that teenager Saige Bloom was driving.
NHTSA has received 99 complaints about unintended acceleration in older Ford Escape models, including 13 crashes, eight injuries and one death.
The investigation follows a July 10 letter from Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Automotive Safety, to Ford Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally, asking him to recall all Escapes from model years 2002 to 2004 for what he called a "lethal cruise control cable defect."
"We ask that you exercise that moral leadership by recalling all Ford Escapes with the defective cruise control cable in the 2002-04 model years to avoid more deaths and injuries which would otherwise occur if Ford waits" for NHTSA to investigate, Ditlow wrote.
Escapes from the 2002 model year have been the subject of eight previous NHTSA investigations, according to the agency's database.
Some of the vehicles have been recalled for engine stalling, an electrical short in the antilock brake system and leaking brake fluid.
Some of the complaints allege that the failure of the throttle to return to idle when the accelerator pedal is released are related to repairs performed as part of 2004 recalls for an accelerator cable assembly defect, regulators said.
On Friday, the Center for Auto Safety pressed Mazda to issue a consumer warning about the Tribute. Ford previously controlled Mazda.
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