Ford Recalls 2 Million Vehicles Over Bum Door Latches

Matt Posky
by Matt Posky

On Wednesday, Ford Motor Co. announced two safety recalls. One is a brake line issue involving 343,900 F-150 pickups equipped with the 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6. The other relates to door latches — an obnoxiously familiar headache for the company — and encompasses a whopping 2.15 million vehicles from the 2011-15 model years.

Ford says the affected vehicles may not have had all door latches correctly replaced or replaced at all when repaired by dealerships under safety recalls 15S16 or 16S30 — both of which were done fix faulty equipment that was susceptible to failure in direct sunlight.

Apparently, the thermal threshold of the parts wasn’t all that impressive,and a few doors popped open while vehicles were in motion. While the manufacturer said it was unaware of any injuries related to the incidents, having a door randomly pop open on the motorway is universally undesirable.

Ford is going to take another whack at it.

Ford no doubt hopes it turns out better this time, as the company has already issued similar, door-centric recalls on at least 5 million vehicles since 2015 — at no small expense to itself. Swapping out a door latch may not be the world’s most costly fix, but conducting millions of them will see the bill run up pretty quickly.

The recall covers select Ford Fiesta models, the Focus, Fusion, Mustang, C-Max, Escape, and Transit Connect manufactured between 2010 and 2015. Lincoln’s MKZ and MKC were also impacted.

From Ford:

Owners will be given the option to inspect the door latch date codes and child safety locks and submit latch date codes online to confirm if repairs done under safety recalls 15S16 or 16S30 were completed correctly. The online system will provide instant validation that the door latches are OK or the latches cannot be confirmed and require dealer service.

If a customer does not want to do the inspection, has difficulty completing the inspection, or receives an indication that the latches cannot be validated, dealers will inspect the latch date codes and replace latches as needed. The Ford reference number for this recall is 20S30.

Meanwhile, the EcoBoost recall affects F-Series pickups from MY 2014-17. The trucks may leak brake fluid into the booster, which we don’t need tell you is bad. Anybody suffering from drippy master cylinder should notice warning lights illuminating on the dashboard. Serious issues will be underpinned by worsening brake performance and a pedal that really needs a good mashing to do its job. The rear brakes should be unaffected, however.

Ford said it was aware of seven low-speed accident claims, with two injuries associated with the issue. So take extra care if you’ve recently seen the red brake warning indicator. Dealers will replace the brake master cylinder and, if it is leaking, the brake booster will also be replaced. The Ford reference number for this recall is 20S31.

[Image: Ford]

Matt Posky
Matt Posky

A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.

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  • SuperCarEnthusiast SuperCarEnthusiast on Jun 12, 2020

    Ford is looking like an Italian car manufacturer in terms of reliability! Ford must choose the cheapest components now because the “drive” to increase profit margin boomerang on them and resulted in increasing costs over time! Stupid cost cost cutting move years ago that ends up with a nightmare in repairs afterwards.

  • Crtfour Crtfour on Jun 12, 2020

    Holy cow. Why do people still fork over their hard earned money for Fords at this point? I understand the truck market is limited and may justify a purchase, but in other vehicle classes it seems like a product from any other brand (even Hyundai/Kia) would be a smarter choice that one of these union built "quality is job 1" units.

    • See 4 previous
    • Art Vandelay Art Vandelay on Jun 13, 2020

      I'll play. 1. I lease typically with the exception of my trucks. As such much of the issues with Fords just don't apply to me. 2. Show me the better competitor to my Fiesta ST which was my last Ford lease bearing in mind my price new was right at 16,500 bucks. 3. My Fords combined (15 F-150 XLT and 18 Fiesta ST) have had fewer recalls and shop visits COMBINED than my wife's Santa Fe Sport. Furthermore the recalls on the truck have been for things like door latches...not "Sorry about the metal shavings we left in your engine maybe...our bad" Zero recalls or shop trips for the ST. 4. The big Ford problems (mainly automatic transmissions in cars) are outside of my typical purchase habits. I am happy to call them out on some of their boneheaded stuff and frankly were I buying long term (not a truck) I would think long and hard about it. I am also pretty choosy with what I get with respect to the components in that particular trim level. The ST for example. the big Fiesta issues (powershift and Sync 2) are not applicable to my car outside of sullying the models reputation and getting a pile of cash on the hood. The only other known problem is the blend door actuator which I am capable of fixing so no problem (mine has been fine though). When I looked at Mustangs I was avoiding the MT82 equipped cars (big reason I went elsewhere honestly). But at the end of the day, long term reliability (outside of my trucks and wife's sleds) just isn't at the top of my list. Thank God as I would have missed out on some fabulous Itallian and German metal in my lifetime. If your top priority is how it will hold up a decade from now, by all means, I would not buy a Ford, again, Save trucks. this is applicable to several other brands (would I have signed up long term for my Challenger?! Not in a million years). Toyota is there for those buyers. But That isn't all of us. The Fords I purchased of late were because they drove better than the competition and put a giant smile on my face. Those tended to be "toy cars" though...not their daily driver fodder. I'd go elsewhere for whatever crossover my wife wants. The Mustang transmission bit is sad though...they are fantastic cars otherwise and I hate to scratch them off as I think the GT with a stick and the handling package is wonderful.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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