Detroit News, "Texan's death rekindles Ford switch issue; Family of retiree files suit blaming component linked with engine fires"

          Al Gavegan Sr.'s death in a house fire last summer left family and friends in San Antonio searching for answers -- and they say the evidence leads straight to Ford Motor Co. and a faulty electrical switch.
          The retired government contractor was well-known as the guy who operated the time clock at high school football games and taught kids with special needs. On birthdays, he asked friends to forgo gifts in favor of teddy bears he could donate to sick children at a local hospital. Hundreds attended his funeral after the 76-year-old died Aug. 14 in a blaze that started when a late-night fire spread from his 1994 Mercury Marquis parked in his attached garage, investigators found.
          A police report listed the fire's probable cause as "an electrical malfunction in the engine compartment of the vehicle." Gavegan's family soon discovered that his Grand Marquis was one of 16 million Ford vehicles built with an electrical switch that has been linked to nearly 550 fires and about 1,500 complaints.
          Since 1999, Ford has recalled 6.85 million vehicles with the switches, making it one of the largest auto safety recalls in U.S. history. On Monday, Ford again expanded the recall of vehicles with the speed control switches in question. The latest recall included 155,000 2003 model SUVs and pickup trucks. But millions of vehicles with the switch, including Gavegan's Grand Marquis, have not been recalled.
          Despite five recalls and an exhaustive federal safety investigation, Ford has been unable to put an end to switch issue. Ford faces more than 20 lawsuits around the country -- including a wrongful death lawsuit to be filed today by the Gavegan family in Bexar County Court in Texas.
          Ford said its decision not to recall all 16 million vehicles with the switches is based on a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation and its own research that show only certain vehicles with the switches are at risk of catching fire. Ford, which initially denied that the switches were defective, says an "interaction" between faulty switches and their placement in certain vehicles is to blame, not the switches alone.
          The switch is used to deactivate a vehicle's cruise control when a driver taps a brake pedal. Most of the suits allege fires began well after the vehicles were turned off.
          Ford stopped using the $21 Texas Instruments switch in 2002 after a decade of use. In 1999, the company recalled the 1992 and 1993 Mercury Grand Marquis models to replace the switch, but not the 1994 model that Gavegan drove. Ford says a specific batch of switches were to blame.
          Mark Chalos, a Nashville lawyer representing the Gavegan family, contends there was no significant engineering difference between the 1993 and 1994 Grand Marquis. "These companies have known for years about the fire dangers of these switches. They have chosen not to recall affected vehicles," Chalos said Monday.
          The Gavegans' suit also names Texas Instruments Inc. The company sold the division that made the switches in 2006 to Sensata Technologies. Of the 6.85 million vehicles recalled, Ford has fixed 45 percent.
          A key reason the switches are a fire hazard is that they have electricity running through them after vehicles are shut off. The fix dealers install is a fused wiring harness to prevent a fire from starting.

San Francisco Chronicle, "Ford Issues Recall, Sees 2Q Loss"

         Ford Motor Co., already reeling from business setbacks, recalled 1.2 million trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans Thursday amid concerns about potential engine fires.  Ford said the recall was tied to the speed control deactivation switch system, which could corrode over time, overheat and ignite. It builds upon one of the largest recalls in U.S. history.
          The recall involves vehicles fueled by gasoline or natural gas and equipped with speed control, including the 1994-2002 F-250, F-350, F-450 and F-550 F-Super Duty trucks, 2000-2002 Excursion SUVs, 1994-1996 Econoline vans and 1996-2002 E-450 vans, and 1998 Explorers and Mountaineers. The recall does not involve similar vehicles fueled by diesel.
          The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday it closed a nearly two-year investigation into the cause of the fires. The agency has received 1,472 complaints connected to the problems, including 65 reports of fires.  NHTSA said there have been no confirmed deaths or injuries, but lawsuits have been filed over three deaths in Iowa, Georgia and Arkansas, allegedly connected to vehicle fires. 
          Owners of the newly recalled vehicles will receive notices in the mail in a week and dealers will install a fused wiring harness. Customers can contact Ford at 1-888-222-2751.

WFMY News (Greensboro, NC), "Ford Trucks Catch Fire, Not Attention; Laura Voos saved the house but not the truck"

          Owners of thousands of Ford light trucks have a bigger concern than high fuel prices, their vehicles could catch fire. Even though they've been warned and offered a repair, CBS News reports that some of the owners are not doing anything about it.
          Laura Voos says her Ford pickup was parked and locked last week when it suddenly burst into flames in her Texas driveway.
          "It was already getting the eaves on the garage when I came out," said Voos of the fire.
          She managed to save the house but not the truck, which is now a burned mass of metal. More than 400 Ford vehicles have caught fire since 2000 and at least three people have died.
          Ford identified the culprit in some of the fires as the cruise control switch. In February, they began recalling 800,000 pickups, Expeditions and Navigators.
          The big question for federal safety investigators is whether millions more Ford vehicles that used similar switches all the way up until 2003 should also be recalled.
          A Ford test video, turned over as evidence for a lawsuit, shows how a switch can catch fire. But Ford says it's still not sure what's behind the problem with the recalled switches.
          Replacing the switch in recalled vehicles is fairly easy. But to complicate matters, federal investigators say the switches might be only part of the problem.
          Meantime, less than half of affected owners have had their switch replaced, even though Ford has sent several recall letters, approved by the government.
          The former head of federal highway safety, Joan Claybrook, says Ford's recall letters don't sound urgent enough. She used to require much stronger wording.
          "It should have in the title and as a headline on the letter itself: safety recall, recall notice, high risk, or danger," Claybrook said.
          Ford says that kind of language might scare consumers too much. But the absence of such wording might be why Laura Voos didn't feel the need to rush down and get her truck fixed when she got a recall reminder, just a week before the fire.

The New York Times, "A Wider Inquiry on Fires in Ford Trucks"

          As Ford Motor faces numerous lawsuits and tries to determine why hundreds of its trucks have burst into flames, federal authorities have widened their investigation into whether a faulty cruise control switch is causing the fires.
          The families of two people killed in fires that the families say erupted from the trucks have sued Ford, and a third family is expected to file a wrongful-death suit next week. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has also stepped up pressure on Ford, expanding its investigation to include more than 3.7 million Lincoln Navigators, Ford Expeditions and F-150 pickup trucks, the nation's best-selling vehicle.
          The investigation centers on a switch in the trucks that disables the cruise control when the driver steps on the brake pedal. The safety administration is investigating the possibility that flammable hydraulic fluid is somehow leaking into the electrical component of the switch and sparking the fires.
          The agency has received reports of 512 fires across the country that may be tied to the switches. Lawyers representing the families of three people who died in fires linked to the trucks say the switches are to blame.
          In addition, property damage lawsuits have been filed in several states where houses have burned to the ground, with residents blaming truck fires in adjacent garages. However, questions remain about exactly how the fires erupt.

The Detroit News, "Safety Agency Widens Investigation; NHTSA awaits Ford's internal report into the questionable part, which is in 16 million vehicles"

           With reports of vehicle fires mounting, Ford Motor Co. is racing to meet a mid-August deadline to provide federal investigators with details of its analysis of faulty cruise-control deactivation switches.
           More than 500 fires have been reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Ford F-150 pickups, and Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUVs.
          In January, Ford announced it was recalling more than 700,000 pickups and SUVs to disconnect switches in the engine compartment that could overheat and cause fires. In March, NHTSA opened a broader investigation into 3.7 million additional vehicles with potentially the same problem.
          A NHTSA spokesman said this week that the agency is deeply involved in its investigation of the switches, but is awaiting Ford's internal data on switch failures.
          "We sent Ford a very detailed information request, which they have until mid-August to respond to," said NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson.
          As many as 16 million Ford vehicles have switches similar to those in the recalled pickups and SUVs. But NHTSA has yet to make public its analysis of other vehicles, and doesn't expect to do so soon.

The Detroit News, "Danger Under the Hood; A little girl dies; attention turns to a faulty Ford part; More than 500 fires reported in pickups, SUVs; probe centers on cruise-control switch"

          The noise woke Tanika Washington just before dawn, a sound like heavy raindrops beating on the roof.
          But when she sat up in bed, she realized it was the crackling of fire.
          "I think something's burning," she said to her husband, Juan. "I think the house is on fire."
          And when Juan opened their bedroom door, a wall of fire was on the other side, raging through the hallway of their split-level home. In the minutes that followed, the house in northern Georgia burned to the ground, and four members of the Washington family escaped with their lives.
          But Blake Washington, the couple's 4-year-old daughter, died in her bed in the blaze on New Year's Day 2004, the victim of what baffled local investigators said was a fire of undetermined origin.
          Nobody suspected that clues may have existed in the smoldering remains of the family's 2001 Ford F-150 pickup until a federal investigation of Ford vehicle fires became public earlier this year.
          With millions of Ford pickups and SUVs now under scrutiny for dangerous fires, the Washington case may prove to be a tragic example of the consequences of a hidden automotive defect.
          On Friday, the Washington family filed a wrongful death suit in a Georgia state court against Ford Motor Co., alleging that a defective cruise-control deactivation switch in the F-150 caused the fire that killed Blake.
          "We expect to prove that the physical evidence is consistent with the fire originating in the Ford," said Mark Chalos of the law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein in Nashville, Tenn. For Blake Washington's parents, the lawsuit is all about getting to the truth behind the tragedy that changed their lives forever. "We lost a child and nothing's going to bring her back, no amount of money," said Tanika Washington. "I want somebody to give a damn that we lost our baby."

To read the full article on the Detroit News website, click here.

Click2Houston.com, "NHTSA Requests More Documents In Ford Fire Investigation"

          The federal government is ordering the Ford Motor Co. to hand over more information in the ongoing probe into fires happening in certain trucks and sport utility vehicles. The development comes as the Local 2 Troubleshooter investigation into the fires prompts action from a member of Congress, the station reported Friday.
          "It's important that we get to the bottom of this," U.S. Rep. Ted Poe said.
          The Houston-area congressman is looking for answers. After watching the Local 2 Troubleshooters investigations into fires happening in Ford F-150s, Expeditions and Lincoln Navigators across Houston and nationwide, Poe personally called the Ford Motor Company.
          "Texas is the No. 1 market for these vehicles in the entire United States. So, the casual starting of these fires has got to cease," he said.
          Poe's call to Ford comes as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently sent a letter to the carmaker asking for volumes of information regarding not only the speed control deactivation switch blamed for causing the fires, but information on the entire cruise control system and manufacturing process.
          The letter from NHTSA is also now asking for information on Ford Rangers, Explorers, Broncos and Econoline vehicles.
          All of those vehicles are equipped with speed control deactivation switches.

CNN News, "Ford Document: Millions of vehicles have fire risk part"

          Early this year, Laura Hernandez nudged her husband, Nestor Oyola, as he slept in their Kissimmee home and asked him to put the Ford Expedition he had bought her the day before into the garage.
          Oyola moved the Expedition and they went to sleep. At 5 the next morning, half an hour after her husband had driven his SUV to work, Hernandez was awakened by barking from Chakuil, their Chihuahua mix.
          "He saved our lives," said Hernandez, who smelled smoke and roused her 15-year-old daughter, Rotsenmary.
          A fire investigator, hired by their auto insurance company, said the blaze was caused by a cruise-control deactivation switch in the SUV -- a type of switch that Ford installed in millions of its vehicles from 1992 until 2003.
          Several fire investigators hired by major insurance companies and auto engineers consulted by CNN say the switch is causing some Ford vehicles to ignite.
          The $20.57 switch shuts off the cruise control when the driver firmly steps on the brakes. The switch is located under the hood of the vehicle and is attached to the brake master cylinder on one end and wired to the cruise control on the other.
Ford has already recalled more than 1 million vehicles in two separate recalls to replace the switch.
          The first recall was in May 1999, affecting 279,000 Crown Victorias, Grand Marquises and Town Cars for model years 1992 and 1993. The second, issued in January 2005, affected 792,000 vehicles, including model year 2001 F-Series SuperCrews and 2000 Expeditions, Navigators and F-150 pickups.
          But a Ford document obtained by CNN shows the same or similar switch was installed in a total of 16 million vehicles, far beyond what was recalled.
          But, in a recall notice to owners of 2000 F-150s, Expeditions, Navigators and 2001 F-150 SuperCrews, the company seemed less equivocal about the switch. The "switch may overheat, smoke or burn which could result in an underhood fire," it said. "This condition may occur either when the vehicle is parked or when it is being operated, even if the speed control is not in use."
          The company stopped using the switch altogether as of the 2004 year model, and is now using a new design.

BizJournals.com, "Lawsuit blames TI, Ford in woman's death"

          A lawsuit filed by the family of an Iowa woman who died in a fire last month claims Ford Motor Co. and Texas Instruments Inc. are guilty of negligence.
          The lawsuit claims that the death of Darletta Mohlis, who died from injuries from a fire in her home May 2, was the result of the failure of a cruise control deactivation switch inside her 1996 F-150 truck that was made by Texas Instruments.
          The suit, filed in a Harris County District Court, also names Wilmington, Del.-based E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co., which made the Kapton and Teflon coatings used in the switch.
          According to the suit, Dallas-based TI and Ford were aware of more than 200 previous incidents in which engine-compartment fires resulted from speed control deactivation switch failures, but limited a recall to certain model-year vehicles to save money.
          Ford, in a statement to the Dallas Business Journal, said remnants of the switch were found at the scene by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Ford investigators and the switch was ruled out as the fire's cause.
          Ford said the evidence suggests the fire started elsewhere in the garage and spread to the truck and the home.
          The company said it extends its condolences to the Mohlis family and continues to cooperate with NHTSA on its investigation of the incident.
          TI spokeswoman Sharon Hampton said Texas Instruments would have supplied the switch in that vehicle but the switch is just one component in the cruise control deactivation switch system.
          "We don't believe there's a safety defect with the switch," she said.

The Associated Press, "U.S. Agency to Probe Ford Pickups, SUVs"

          Federal regulators said Wednesday they are investigating more than 3.7 million Ford Motor Co. pickups and sport utility vehicles because of a defect in a cruise control switch that already has led to a recall.
         The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it would examine Ford F-150 pickups from the 1995-1999 and 2001-2002 model years, and Ford Expeditions and Lincoln Navigators from the 1997-1999 and 2001-2002 model years.
          Agency officials said they have received 218 complaints of engine fires from the cruise control switch in those models. No injuries or fatalities have been reported.
          The investigation of the popular vehicles does not include the 2000 model years of the trucks and SUVs, which was covered by recall in January of nearly 800,000 vehicles.
          Ford said the cruise control switch could short circuit and cause an engine compartment fire when the vehicle is parked or driven, even if cruise control is not in use.
          "We'll continue to cooperate with the agency until the matter is closed," Ford spokeswoman Kristen Kinley said.
          The auto safety agency often conducts investigations after getting complaints from consumers or spotting trends in warranty claims. Investigations can lead to vehicle recalls.

San Francisco Chronicle, "Ford recalls nearly 800,000 pickups and SUVs because of fire risk"

          Ford Motor Co. is recalling nearly 800,000 pickups and sport utility vehicles because the cruise control switch could short circuit and cause a fire under the hood, the automaker said.
          In an interview Friday from Deltona, Fla., broadcast on NBC's "Today" show, F-150 owner Bob Garcia described how flames engulfed his truck at his home while the ignition was turned off. The intense fire also damaged his garage.
          "It caught on fire inside the garage all by itself," Garcia said. "No key in it." During the interview, NBC showed a videotape dated last month that showed the damage from the blaze.
         Ford will notify owners of the recall in February, and dealers will deactivate the cruise control switch for free. Once the company has an adequate supply of replacement switches, it will send another letter notifying owners that they can get their switches replaced. Ford said cruise control will be disabled once the switch is deactivated.