Sept. 6 (UPI) — Ford Motor Company said Thursday it needs to fix seat belt pretensioners in about 2 million F-150 trucks, due to a potential fire hazard.
Ford said it’s aware of 17 reports of smoke or fire in the United States and six in Canada. The automaker said it’s not aware of any incidents or injures related to the defect.
The recall applies to 2015-2018 Ford F-150 Regular Cab and SuperCrew Cab models.
“Ford’s investigation found that some front seat belt pretensioners can generate excessive sparks when they deploy,” Ford said in a statement. “When sufficient sparks are present, gases exhausted inside the lower portion of the B-pillar by the pretensioners may ignite. If this gas ignites, components behind the B-pillar such as insulation and carpet may subsequently catch fire.”
Ford said the recall affects just under 2 million trucks in North America — 1.6 million in the United States, 340,000 in Canada and 36,000 in Mexico.
Ford notified the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the recall. The NHTSA said issues prompting the recall date back to some post-crash interior fires reported last year.
