Detroit News / Courier Journal
WASHINGTON — Ford Motor Co. overruled its safety engineers' recommendation to recall up to 4.1 million pickups and sport utility vehicles that were found to have substandard door latches, according to company documents that have surfaced in recent court cases. A Ford safety engineering team determined in March 2000 that door latches on certain 1997-2000 model light trucks — including popular F-150, F-250, Expedition and Lincoln ...

New York Times: May 4, 2004
HOUSTON, May 3 — Deborah Seliner says she does not remember the accident, just one moment when she was driving her used 1997 Ford pickup along Highway 6 near College Station and the next moment when she was in the dark carrying on a conversation with someone she decided was God. She was begging him, "God, please, if that is you, let me live for my babies." Her truck, she found later, had blown a rear tire ...

USA Today: May 4, 2004
New allegations about Ford Motor's handling of potentially faulty door latches on pickups and sport-utility vehicles raise questions about the adequacy of a 35-year-old federal safety standard. Ford (F) used what plaintiff's lawyers say is a questionable alternate test in 2000 to claim the latches met the required safety standard after those on more than 4 million trucks failed to meet the test used by other automakers, recently released court ...

Boston Globe: May 3, 2004
DEARBORN, Mich. -- Ford Motor Co. overruled its own safety engineers' recommendations to recall up to 4.1 million pickups and sport utility vehicles after they had found substandard door latches, court documents indicated. A Ford safety engineering team determined in March 2000 that door latches on certain 1997-2000 light trucks did not meet federal safety standards. The trucks include the popular F-150, F-250, Expedition, and Lincoln Navigator models, according to internal Ford memos made public as part of civil court cases ...

Detroit News: May 2, 2004
WASHINGTON — Ford Motor Co. overruled its own safety engineers’ recommendation to recall up to 4.1 million pickups and sport utility vehicles that were found to have substandard door latches, according to internal company documents that have surfaced in recent court cases. A Ford safety engineering team determined in March 2000 that door latches on certain 1997-2000 model light trucks — including popular F-150, F-250, Expedition and Lincoln Navigator models — didn’t meet federal safety standards, the documents show ...

National & World: May 2, 2004
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) -- Ford Motor Co. overruled its own safety engineers' recommendations to recall up to 4.1 million pickups and sport utility vehicles that they found had substandard door latches, court documents indicated. A Ford safety engineering team determined in March 2000 that door latches on certain 1997-2000 light trucks didn't meet federal safety standards. The trucks include the popular F-150, F-250, Expedition and Lincoln Navigator models, according to internal Ford memos made public as part of court cases ...

The Wall Street Journal: May 2, 2004
After the recommendations, Ford ordered immediate design changes for future vehicles. But the automaker decided against a recall, which could have cost up to $527 million. The company determined instead that the latches could pass a rarely used alternative compliance test, The Detroit News reported Sunday. At least 16 product-liability lawsuits filed against the automaker claim that latch failures led to fatal accidents involving doors that flew open. Many have been settled, but others are pending ...

Atlanta Journal Constitution
Ford Motor Co. settled Texas lawsuits alleging that two women died and another was paralyzed because a faulty handle caused doors to fling open during accidents. On April 21, Ford settled a suit brought by the families of Maria Guzman and Maria Garcia, who were killed in 2002 when ...