Ford issues recall for nearly 65,000 Maverick trucks over side air bag issue

While Ford Maverick is a hot-selling pick-up truck from the manufacturer, it has been hit with a major recall impacting 64,974 vehicles built between February 3 and July 9 of this year. The affected units are equipped with side curtain air bags that may not deploy properly, as per a report by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). This leads of violation of federal regulations and leads to safety concerns for occupants.

At present, the automaker is not aware of any accidents or injuries related to the issue but the recalled Mavericks will be equipped with new side curtain air bag modules that feature a different design. The company will begin notifying owners of affected vehicles via emails from September 22 and the repairs will be made at no extra cost to them.

The air bag issue in Maverick trucks was first brought to the company's notice when NHTSA's Office of Vehicle Safety Compliance contacted Ford on June 29 regarding results from a compliance audit involving ejection mitigation requirements. The results showed that the air bag “displacement results for the front lower primary target was 111.9 mm (4.4 inches), which exceeds the federal regulation of 100 mm (3.9 inches)."

This was in contrast to Ford’s certification testing from December 2020, which indicated a displacement of between 82.5 and 88.4 mm (3.2 and 3.5 inches). Ford then analyzed the NHTSA test data and compared it to its own results, but at that point it wasn't able to figure out a reason for the differences. In July, Ford conducted a test with “new, current batch side curtain air bags from the [Hermosillo] assembly plant" and found out that these too exceeded federal limits.

After this, the company issued an order to stop shipment of order at its plant and on August 1, it decided to issue a recall for the affected Maverick pick up trucks.