DETROIT
- Government safety regulators are investigating complaints that
throttles can stick on older-model Ford Escape and Mazda Tribute SUVs
and cause them to crash.
The
probe, announced Tuesday by the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, affects 730,000 SUVs from the 2001 to 2004 model years
that are powered by V-6 engines.
The
safety agency said it has received 99 complaints from owners of the
SUVs alleging 13 crashes, nine injuries and one death caused by the
problem. The throttles on the SUVs can fail to return to idle when the
driver takes his foot off the gas pedal, according to agency documents.
Sixty-eight
of the complaints were about the Escape, and 31 involved the Tribute, a
nearly identical vehicle made by Ford for Mazda. Dearborn, Mich-based
Ford used to own about one-third of Mazda. But Ford began cutting ties
in 2008, and in 2010 lowered its ownership to 3.5 per cent.
Investigators
are looking into whether the sticky throttles could have been caused by
repairs made as part of a 2004 recall of the same vehicles. About
590,000 of the vehicles were recalled in December of 2004 to fix an
accelerator cable defect, and the documents say the repairs could have
damaged the cruise control cable.
The
investigation is among the larger probes started by NHTSA in 2012.
While many affect fewer than 100,000 vehicles, the agency this year
began looking into door fires affecting 1.4 million Toyota Camry midsize
sedans and RAV4 small SUVs. It also expanded a fuel tank fire probe in
older-model Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs to include 5.1 million vehicles.
NHTSA
investigations are the first step toward a recall, but they don't
always cause cars and trucks to go back to dealerships for repairs.
The
SUV investigation comes just over a week after the Center for Auto
Safety, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group petitioned NHTSA to
investigate the Escape and Tribute problems. The group also wants a
hearing on whether Ford and Mazda met obligations to notify owners and
fix defects in their vehicles.
But
NHTSA said in documents filed Tuesday that it has denied the group's
petition because the agency has been looking at the Escape and Tribute
problems since early in 2012. The agency said it began gathering
information after the driver of a 2002 Escape was killed in a crash in
Payson, Ariz., this past January.
No comments:
Post a Comment