NHTSA Deepening Probe Into Ford F-150 Brakes

by Aaron Cole

Updated: December 30th, 2020 Published: October 20th, 2015

nhtsa deepening probe into ford f 150 brakes

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will look further into claims that 2011-2012 F-150 trucks may have a faulty brake vacuum pump on cold starts that caused seven crashes, including one injury, the Detroit News reported.

According to the report, nearly 253,000 trucks are affected by the investigation. Ford has said that it will comply with the investigation and that a recall shouldn’t be necessary for the trucks because the failing vacuum pump will sufficiently notify drivers before braking distance is significantly impacted.

According to NHTSA, the agency began investigating complaints of ineffective brakes at cold start in June. Ford provided the agency with data from 396 complaints.

According to the automaker, water leaking into the vacuum pump is to blame for the eroding vacuum.

Ford hasn’t yet recalled the trucks, although escalating the investigation into an engineering analysis is a necessary step before NHTSA can order the automaker to recall its vehicles.

One owner said their truck was nearly incapacitated in the morning, and that Ford service technicians were unaware of the problem in September, after the investigation started in June:

The below problem has repeated itself more than 20 times since the first incident. When parked overnight or over a long period of time, upon starting and operating the truck – either reverse or drive – the brakes fail to engage the first one or two times. Had to either hit the brakes very hard or i had to revert the truck to P(parking) position. This just about works to bring the truck to a halt, but even this failed a couple of times when D(driving forward). Thankfully, no one was around for 10 meters. This has led me to only starting the vehicle when there is no person/object either in front or the rear. It is high-risk each time given the damage the truck can do if it collides into something. … The possible issues could be the vacuum pump failing, but Ford technicians claim to have never heard of this problem. Really at a loss and hope Ford sends out a bulletin to fix this ASAP. This is not a joke. It’s life threatening and could cause real damage very soon.

#2011 #2012 #Brakes #F-150 #Ford #NHTSA #Recall #Safety #VacuumPump

Aaron Cole

More by Aaron Cole

Comments

Join the conversation

3 of 13 comments

Mike1dog on Oct 20, 2015

Looking at what the dealer cost is on a vacuum pump, I can see why Ford doesn't want to replace all of them. Of course, dealer cost will suddenly be adjusted to about a tenth of that price if and when a recall occurs.

Like Reply
Dantes_inferno on Oct 21, 2015

Ford should implement a supplemental emergency braking system on their F-150s. The formal name for this system is called a boat anchor.

Like Reply
- DeadWeight on Oct 21, 2015
  
  Or tailgate parachute.
  
  Like

Recent Comments

Kjhkjlhkjhkljh kljhjkhjklhkjh A prelude is a bad idea. There is already Acura with all the weird sport trims. This will not make back it's R&D money.
Analoggrotto I don't see a red car here, how blazing stupid are you people?
Redapple2 Love the wheels
Redapple2 Good luck to them. They used to make great cars. 510. 240Z, Sentra SE-R. Maxima. Frontier.
Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.