Ford Motor Company is recalling more than 1.5 million vehicles to fix problems with windshield wiper arms breaking on select pickup trucks and leaky brake hoses on various models dating back many years.
This week, the company announced separate recall actions it had filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
More than 1.2 million midsize automobiles are affected by the first warning because they have brake hoses that could rupture and leak brake fluid. The defective hoses were put into Ford Fusion and Lincoln MKZ vehicles between 2013 and 2018.
The company claimed to be aware of just one crash caused by the issue, with no indication of any injuries.
“A brake fluid leak will increase brake pedal travel and extend the distance needed to stop the vehicle, increasing the risk of [a] crash,” the NHTSA said.
By mail, impacted vehicle owners will be instructed to take their automobiles to a Ford or Lincoln dealer so that the brake hoses can be upgraded for free.
More than 222,000 F-150 pickups produced in 2021 are affected by the second recall.
The company found that certain of the pickup trucks produced in that year may have windshield wiper arms that might break, and it advises owners to take their cars to dealers for free inspection and replacement if necessary.
Because they are built with two independent circuits that provide redundancy in the event of a hose rupture, according to Ford, the brakes do not fully fail.
Although they continued to drive their cars and had no trouble stopping, the two customers who reported reduced braking told Ford that the incident made them lose faith in the brake system.
That is not the first time that Ford has issued a recall due to issues with a front brake jounce hose.
According to an NHTSA document, Ford started monitoring similar issues with the Ford Edge SUV after hearing about hose ruptures in Asia and South America. It looked at related vehicles for the following two years as it phased those parts out of factory production.
The Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX, two other vehicles that use the same braking components, were discovered to have a “low but increasing” rate of hose ruptures throughout the duration of their usable lives. To fix the issue, the carmaker recalled approximately 500,000 of vehicles in August 2020.
