DETROIT (AP) — Ford
Motor Co. is telling owners of one version of the brand-new Ford Escape
not to drive the SUVs until dealers can fix fuel lines that can crack
and spill gasoline, causing engine fires.
The company issued the
unusual warning on Thursday and said it is recalling 2013 Escapes
equipped with 1.6-liter four-cylinder engines. Dealers will pick up the
Escapes and drop off a loaner car that customers can use until the
repairs are finished. The company is hoping to ship parts and get all
the SUVs repaired in the next two weeks.
Ford says it has three
reports of fires: two at the factory and one while a customer was
driving an Escape. No one has been injured.
The recall affects
11,500 Escapes in the U.S. and Canada. Only 4,800 have been sold to
customers. The rest are on dealer lots and will be fixed before they are
sold, spokeswoman Marcey Zwiebel said. "We are obviously taking very
quick action in the interest of our customers' safety," she said.
Escapes powered by other engines are not affected, nor are other Ford models with 1.6-liter engines, Zwiebel said.
This
is the second recall of the redesigned Escape, which went on sale in
June. On Saturday, the company said it would recall more than 10,000
Escapes to fix carpet padding that could interfere with braking. The
new version of the SUV is among Ford's top-selling vehicles. People
bought 28,500 Escapes last month, up 28 percent from June 2011.
The Escapes in the latest recall were built at the company's Louisville, Ky., plant from early April through July 11.
Ford
says owners should call dealers to get the problem fixed. If parts
aren't available, dealers will drop off loaner cars for use until the
repairs can be made. Once the parts arrive, it will take less than an
hour for technicians to replace the fuel lines, Zwiebel said.
It's safe to park the Escapes in your garage because the fires happen only while the vehicles are moving, she said.
Older-model
Escapes may also have safety problems. Government safety regulators are
investigating complaints that throttles can stick on Escape and Mazda
Tribute SUVs and cause them to crash. The probe, announced Tuesday by
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, affects 730,000 SUVs
from the 2001 to 2004 model years that are powered by V-6 engines.
The
safety agency received 99 complaints from owners of the SUVs alleging
13 crashes, nine injuries and one death caused by the problem. The
throttles on the SUVs can fail to return to idle when the driver takes
his foot off the gas pedal, according to agency documents.
The older Escapes have not been recalled to fix the problem, although a recall is possible.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
