Airbag kills driver, Ford recalls some trucks
DETROIT — Ford is telling owners of about 2,900 Ranger small pickup trucks not to drive them after finding out that an exploding Takata airbag inflator killed a driver in West Virginia.
The death occurred July 1, and Ford said it was notified in December. After some investigation, the company determined that the truck’s inflator was made on the same day as one that exploded and killed a South Carolina man driving a Ranger in 2015.
Ford is now issuing an urgent new recall in the U.S. and Canada for Rangers with inflators made on that day because of the immediate danger from this lot of inflators.
“We take this matter very seriously and are advising owners of these specific 2006 Ford Rangers to stop driving their vehicles so dealers can make repairs immediately,” Ford said Thursday.
Ford dealers will repair the trucks at owners’ homes or tow them in for work, spokeswoman Elizabeth Weigandt said. Ford will offer loaner vehicles.
“It’s critical that this message reaches all affected owners,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a statement. “It is extremely important that all high-risk airbags are tracked down and replaced immediately.”
Ford said it was notified of the West Virginia death Dec. 22, and the company inspected the vehicle Dec. 27. The West Virginia death is the second involving a Ranger and the 21st worldwide caused by Takata inflators.
The inflators, which use ammonium nitrate as a propellant, can explode with too much force, blowing apart a metal canister and spewing shrapnel. The problem touched off the largest string of auto recalls in U.S. history and forced Takata into bankruptcy. More than 180 people have been injured.
Weigandt said she didn’t know if there was a manufacturing problem on the day the inflators were made.
But Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategies Inc., a Massachusetts firm that does auto testing for plaintiffs’ lawyers and other clients, said a manufacturing problem is likely. “My suspicion is they found something very specific to that day that exacerbated an already bad situation,” he said.
In January 2016, Ford recalled about 391,000 Rangers in the U.S. and Canada from the 2004 to 2006 model years to replace the driver’s inflators. The recall came after the government announced the December 2015 death of Joel Knight, 52, of Kershaw, South Carolina, that was caused by a Takata air bag in his 2006 Ranger.
As of July 28, 2017, the most recent quarterly report from Ford available on the NHTSA website, only 3.7 per cent of the recalled 2004 to 2006 Rangers in the U.S. had been repaired, removed from service or the owners were unreachable. That’s an extremely low completion rate. On average, recalls have a 75 per cent completion rate within 18 months of when they began, NHTSA has said.
Weigandt said Ford has sent letters and text messages, made phone calls and posted warnings on Facebook and Twitter urging owners to get their trucks repaired.
The first recall in 2016 was an interim repair until replacement inflators that don’t use ammonium nitrate could be manufactured, she said. Some owners might have ignored the first recall notice in anticipation of the final repair announced in December.
Several other automakers also have low completion rates. A November report showed that automakers have fixed only 43 per cent of the faulty inflators.