Ford Adds 4.5 Million Cars to Recall List

Ford Motor Company will add 4.5 million vehicles to the already-massive list of vehicles recalled because of a problem with the cruise control switch. According to Ford, the newest additions to the list are older-model vehicles that face the same problem as the rest of the vehicles on the recall list, which is a risk of fires due to a defective cruise control switch.

A Ford spokesman stated that 1.1 million of the recalled vehicles will be Ford Windstar minivans, which will be repaired due to the relatively small risk of fires. The rest of the 3.4 million vehicles will be Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles with the same switches installed, even though there have been no reports of fires associated to the cruise control switches in these vehicles.

All of the vehicles covered by the recall are from the 1992 to 2003 model years. According to the company spokesman, this marks the seventh recall initiated by faults with speed control switches made by Texas Instruments. In all, the recalls related to the problem cover 14.3 million vehicles and constitute the largest recall in Ford history. Vehicle owners will be notified by mail starting at the end of the month with instructions on how to get the problem fixed.

Ford Windstar (Image: Flickr)