‘Ford ignored Kuga fire’

FORD was warned for at least a year that its Kuga SUV had potentially deadly problems — but appears not to have acted on the alarm bells.

At least 47 Kugas have caught alight and one person has died after his car burst into flames.

An investigation by Sowetan has established that Ford SA was warned of the problems in January last year following a probe into two Kuga fires.

Insurance companies also confirmed that they had alerted the company to issues relating to the Kuga going back as far as 2014. Ford issued an alert to Kuga owners only in December after the National Consumer Commission summoned it following reports about the burning vehicles and about the death of Reshall Jimmy.

Jimmy died when his Kuga caught fire in December 2015. Ford and the consumer commission are due to make a “major announcement” today.

E-mails seen show that fire investigator Larry Jenkinson, hired by Discovery Insure, raised the alarm with the insurance company after he investigated two Kuga fires in January last year.

Jenkinson believed the fires were similar to fires in a similar model in the US and Europe, following which Ford ordered a mass recall of the vehicle.

It was Jenkinson’s report into a fire which destroyed Pretoria mother Zané Verhoef’s Kuga that caught the attention of Discovery Insure’s claims specialist, Shawn Muller.

Verhoef was rescued from her burning car after her daughter, Tinique, 11, stopped another motorist. Jenkinson’s report concludes that the fire had been at the back and lower extremities of the engine compartment of Verhoef’s Kuga.

Verhoef’s husband, Bertie, who was given Jenkinson’s report, e-mailed it to Ford’s Phineas Papo, but no response was forthcoming. “When Ford stopped communicating, Discovery told us they would handle the matter. They said the report was in our favour.”