{"id":1857,"date":"2026-08-03T18:31:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T18:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1857"},"modified":"2026-08-03T18:31:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T18:31:56","slug":"us-says-some-older-ford-cars-suvs-pose-safety-risks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1857","title":{"rendered":"US says some older Ford cars, SUVs pose safety risks"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Monday that some older Ford cars and SUVs pose unreasonable \u200bsafety risks because the timing belt may fail and cause them to lose \u200cpower or engines to seize.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The U.S. auto safety regulator upgraded a defect investigation into about 135,000 Ford Fiesta, Ford Focus and Ford EcoSport vehicles with 1.0L engines from various model years between 2014 and 2021.<\/p>\n

NHTSA said it \u200bhad reports of 355 incidents that allege a low engine oil pressure warning light \u200bappearing just before a complete loss or reduction of motive power while driving.<\/p>\n

Ford, \u2060which has discontinued all three models, had no immediate comment.<\/p>\n

NHTSA said its initial probe found \u200btiming belt material may degrade and create debris clogging the mesh oil pump pick-up screen, resulting \u200bin reduced engine oil pressure.<\/p>\n

Its investigation suggests failures can occur without sufficient warning that loss of power or engine seizure is imminent, adding failures have occurred despite proper and routine oil maintenance, NHTSA added.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on NHTSA\u2019s analysis \u200bof the data, failure rates, information provided by Ford, preliminary engine teardown analysis, and precedent recalls \u200bregarding loss of engine oil pressure with the presence of driver facing warnings, (the agency) believes there is an \u200cunreasonable \u2060risk to motor vehicle safety,\u201d NHTSA said.<\/p>\n

NHTSA\u2019s move to upgrade the probe to an engineering analysis is a required step before it could seek to compel a Ford recall.<\/p>\n

A driver on a major highway in Wilmington, Delaware reported the oil pressure light illuminated and within 1\/8th of a mile \u200bthe 2017 Ford Focus \u201clost \u200ball power and the \u2060engine began to sound like a tank\u201d.<\/p>\n

Some drivers reported engine failures costing thousands of dollars to fix.<\/p>\n

Data showed an average failure mileage of approximately \u200b70,000 miles, and that 98% of the failures occurred prior to \u200bthe 150,000-mile suggested \u2060timing belt replacement, NHTSA said.<\/p>\n

In June, Ford told NHTSA it was adopting a non-safety customer satisfaction program for global vehicles with a 1.0L Fox Classic Timing Belt, reducing the maintenance interval to 100,000 \u2060miles or \u200bsix years.<\/p>\n

Ford is offering reimbursement to eligible customers who \u200bpreviously paid for engine repairs or replacement due to a timing belt-related issue, NHTSA added. It is not immediately clear which \u200bU.S. vehicles are covered by the customer satisfaction program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Monday that some older Ford cars and SUVs pose unreasonable \u200bsafety risks because the timing belt may fail and cause them to lose \u200cpower or engines to seize. The U.S. auto safety regulator upgraded a defect investigation into about 135,000 Ford Fiesta, Ford Focus and Ford…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static.arynews.tv\/zip-archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Ford.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[3523,3522,3521,3525,3526,463,3524],"class_list":["post-1857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","tag-cars","tag-ford","tag-older","tag-pose","tag-risks","tag-safety","tag-suvs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}