Ford Recalls 12k+ Mostly New 2015 Trucks For Possible Part Falling Off

On Tuesday, May 11, 2015, Ford Motor Company announced it was recalling 12,300 mostly new 2015 Ford F-150 trucks due to a part not being properly attached. This part could fall off and cause a loss of steering control.

Ford is recalling 12K mostly new 2015 Ford F-150 trucks due to the possibility of a part falling off.

The story goes the upper I-shaft might have been riveted improperly. This could cause the shaft to detach resulting in a loss of steering control.

Ford’s spokeswoman Kelli Felker told the Detroit News, the riveted parts are both steel and they were in use in 2014 trucks as well. This rivet, according to Felker, has nothing to do with the truck being made out of aluminum.

It is worth pointing out that typically spot welds are used throughout steel trucks and rivets are more common in aluminum construction. However, since this affects 2014 models as well, this part is likely riveted on.

The trucks were built from March 19 through March 30 at Ford’s Kansas City and Dearborn truck plants. Officially, there are 12,328 trucks affected with 8,963 in the U.S., 3,348 in Canada and 17 in Mexico. Of that number, there are 6,722 vehicles that haven’t been sold. These trucks are likely on dealer lots or on transports. This leaves just 5,606 trucks in owner’s possession.

Our Take

This is, ultimately, a minor issue affecting a small number of new trucks and Ford will fix the problem. Fortunately, Ford says they are only aware of one incident of steering loss and no one has been harmed. Yet, we can’t help thinking this is a blow to Ford’s Joe Hinrichs. He had a big story on AutoNews.com titled “Ford sweated the details to improve product launches.”

During the story, he says the “smooth” rollout of the new 2015 F-150 will contribute to them having a “breakthrough year.” He says they added time back into the development process to improve the launches. There was also a lot more attention to detail. Hinrichs told AutoNews:

“The latest builds of all of the launch vehicles, every time we’d need a build they would send one up here, and I’d personally go through it with some of the leaders. We had one of those going almost every week over the last year. Drive a lot of the vehicles, just a lot of personal attention with the teams, make sure they knew about the issues early enough, and a lot of adherence to our process disciplines, especially focusing earlier on in the development process, making sure that the parts were released on time so we could build the prototype vehicles and test them. If you don’t get those things right, everything at the end becomes a problem.”

Also, egg on the face for Ford and Hinrichs is this recall coming on the heels of an April recall for an improperly installed or missing underbody heat shield. Seems like they also need to take a fine tooth comb to their production process as well.