Nearly 1.3 million Ford F-150 trucks are under investigation in the United States
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating nearly 1.3 million Ford F-150 pickup trucks in the U.S., reporting unexpected gear downshifts accompanied by temporary rear wheel locks.
NHTSA said on Monday that some Ford F-150 pickup trucks from 2015 to 2017 models were initially evaluated after receiving 138 consumer complaints.
The complaint alleges that when driving at highway speed without warning or driver input, reduces the gear’s unexpected downshift and then the vehicle decelerates rapidly.
A Ford spokesman said on Monday that the automaker “works with NHTSA to support its investigation” and said it was related to vehicles with a six-speed transmission.
Ford did not provide any comments on the impact of Canadian company news on Canadian consumers, and Canadian shipping companies were unable to respond immediately.
NHTSA is conducting a preliminary assessment of the problem and then it must decide whether to update the detector to engineering analysis before it can seek a recall.
A 2023 complaint from an Ohio owner of the 2016 F-150 said that while driving at 70 mph on the highway, “the truck automatically moved from gear 6 to first gear, almost putting me through the windshield.”
Many owners report long waits for parts replacement.
Some complaints say the rear wheels of the vehicle will temporarily lock, grab or slide during downshift, resulting in loss of control. This could lead to an increased risk of crashes, NHTSA said. The agency said there are no reports of a crash or a fire.
The latest in a series of surveys
This is the latest study in a series of NHTSA surveys on unexpected declines in the F-150.
In June, Ford recalled the 2014 668,000 F-150 truck and reported an unexpected downshift to first gear, resulting in driver control losses or rear wheel locks.
This is the latest Ford recall since 2016 and has begun an investigation after NHTSA in March 2023 to investigate whether the 2014 model truck needs to be recalled.
Ford recalled 153,000 2011-2012 Ford F-150 vehicles in 2016, equipped with a six-speed automatic transmission to solve the downshift problem.
NHTSA opened a survey on the issue in December 2017, and in 2019, Ford expanded its recalls to cover 1.48 million F-150 trucks in North America, including the 2013 model. Ford then recalled 107,000 2013 F-150 vehicles due to problems with the fix.
In November, NHTSA discovered that the automaker failed to recall vehicles with defective rearview cameras in time, and Ford agreed to a $165 million U.S. civil penalties.
