Hot on the heels of Toyota's worldwide recall of 1m hybrids, Ford announced it was calling back around 2m trucks, mostly in the US.
The 2015-18 F-150 Regular Cab and SuperCrew Cab vehicles in North America have a problem with driver and front passenger seat belt pretensioners.
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The automaker's investigation found some front seat belt pretensioners can generate excessive sparks when they deploy. When sufficient sparks are present, gases exhausted inside the lower portion of the B-pillar by the pretensioners may ignite. If this gas ignites, components behind the B-pillar such as insulation and carpet may subsequently catch fire.
Ford said it was aware of 17 reports of smoke or fire in the United States and six in Canada but was not aware of any accidents or injuries as a result of the fault.
Affected vehicles include:
- 2015-18 F-150s built at Dearborn Assembly Plant from 12 March, 2014 to 23 August, 2018
- 2015-18 F-150s built at Kansas City from 20 August, 2014 to 23 August, 2018
The automaker said are approximately 1,995,776 vehicles in North America are affected with 1,619,112 of those in the US and federalised territories, 339,884 in Canada and 36,780 in Mexico.
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By GlobalDataThe Ford reference number for this recall is 18S27.
Dealers will remove insulation material from the B pillar trim, remove remnants of wiring harness tape in the B pillar area and apply heat resistant tape to the carpet and its insulation. Dealers also will modify the back interior panels of regular cab models.
