Posted on 03/21/2019 5:16:17 PM PDT by rickmichaels
Migraine headaches, fatigue and dizziness were sidelining Bert Henriksen several times a week.
Evenings were the worst, after his 50-km commute home in his 2017 Ford Explorer.
His behaviour grew erratic. He’d get angry over minor things. “We were getting scared that he had some kind of a brain problem,” said his wife, Megan.
An answer came last March in a phone call from his doctor: A blood test revealed Henriksen had been exposed to toxic levels of carbon monoxide gas. But how? He says his prime suspect was parked in his driveway.
Henriksen is among more than 3,000 Ford Explorer owners who’ve complained to Ford or U.S. federal regulators they suspect exhaust fumes have seeped into their sport utility vehicles’ cabins.
Many fear carbon monoxide gas may have made them ill, and dozens of drivers have complained to regulators that the company’s recommended fix wasn’t effective.
Explorer owners have filed more than 50 legal claims across the U.S. against Ford. And some police departments said in 2017 that Explorers used as cruisers were exposing officers to carbon monoxide.
The complaints, which cover vehicles built between 2010 and 2018, carry high stakes for the second-largest U.S. automaker. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began investigating drivers’ claims in 2016, then expanded the probe a year later after saying it had “preliminary evidence” of elevated carbon monoxide levels in some driving scenarios.
If NHTSA finds a safety defect, Ford would face the prospect of recalling more than 1 million vehicles, costing perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars.
Ford, which in January debuted a redesigned Explorer for the 2020 model year, says there’s nothing wrong with the previous version. “All of our testing to date has shown these vehicles are safe,” company spokesman Mike Levine said in a statement.
“Ford’s investigation has not found carbon monoxide levels that exceed what people are exposed to every day.”
The claims aren’t easy to investigate. The U.S. has no regulatory standard for how much of the odourless, colourless, toxic gas would create a health risk for drivers, and scientists say the answer varies depending on an individual’s health and age. And drivers say the seepage problem comes and goes, complicating attempts to verify their allegations.
NHTSA’s task includes evaluating both what might be causing the alleged defect and what sort of health risk is posed to occupants by any pollutants in the cabin, a subject that global experts have just begun to study in recent years.
Ford’s response to the claims has served to deepen some drivers’ mistrust. The company’s first attempt to quell the concerns—through repair instructions the company provided to dealerships in 2012 to respond to customers’ complaints—was followed by repeated updates and several additional instructions.
Ford said it’s confident in its most recent repair campaign, which was offered in 2017 and is still in effect. Complaints have dropped dramatically since this latest effort, the company said, and the fix “effectively resolves the matter.”
And yet, for drivers like Bert Henriksen, it hasn’t. He now drives with a portable carbon monoxide detector in his Explorer, and he said it occasionally shows elevated levels of the gas.
He invited Bloomberg News along for a ride. There was very little sign of carbon monoxide during a 120-km test drive near Henriksen’s home in South Lyon, Michigan, in January. One of two detectors in his vehicle registered only tiny amounts of the gas. The other showed zero.
“That’s the problem—it’s so sporadic,” he said. Ford twice sent engineers to examine his Explorer, Henriksen said, and they found no problem.
Ford offered to buy his Explorer back after he sued the company under Michigan’s lemon law. He’s in the process of closing that deal now.
As of mid-2016, Ford had bought back roughly 100 Explorers from complaining drivers, according to federal records. “We have made buyback offers to certain customers as goodwill gestures,” Ford’s Levine said.
One of the first complaints came from a Ford manager who was leasing an Explorer. Company engineers tested his vehicle and confirmed what they described as a slight exhaust odour under specific driving conditions: full-throttle acceleration while the climate-control system was in “recirculation” mode.
Ford described those circumstances as outside “typical customer usage,” according to a letter the company sent NHTSA in August 2016.
Using recirculation mode created negative air pressure inside the cabin, which could draw in outside gases through gaps in the rear of the Explorer’s body, Ford’s letter said.
That letter didn’t address any potential flaws in the Explorer’s exhaust system itself, but records the company turned over to NHTSA indicate that Ford dealers found exhaust system leaks in roughly 50 Explorers between December 2011 and April 2016—all on vehicles with fewer than 160,000 km.
The leaks were mostly found in the exhaust manifold and the catalytic converter, and were chalked up to porous welds, cracks and poor fits with other components. The reports indicate installing new parts resolved owners’ complaints.
In a statement, Ford said its testing hasn’t found exhaust leaks “to be a contributor to the concern.”
NHTSA declined to comment on the progress of its probe, but said it’s testing and inspecting several Explorers driven by consumers and police officers and reviewing crashes involving police Explorers. The agency has completed about 90 such engineering analyses on various vehicle models since 2008; more than two-thirds of them resulted in manufacturers issuing recalls.
Recalling the 1.3 million fifth-generation Explorers would be costly. For context: In 2017, Ford took a US$267 million charge to recall 1.3 million F-Series pickup trucks in the U.S., Canada and Mexico to correct faulty door latches.
In Michigan, Bert Henriksen is still waiting to complete his buyback. Meanwhile, he’s driving his Explorer to and from work each day and keeping an eye on the carbon monoxide detector that sits on his dashboard. When it registers, he says, he rolls down the windows.
“Much more likely is these people chronically irritating their vestibular systems by texting and driving.”
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A tad off topic but today had to call a mortgage company and an automated voice called me later to ask some qustions-—and they then said,”If you are answering this while driving please hang up”
So I did! (I was home)
Odd!
.
They're probably just tossing keys to you anyway.
I have a 99 Ford Explorer 4x4 Sport...got 250k on it....and the tranny went out. It's my hunting truck...Elected to stuff a new tranny in it...and an engine.
I like the truck....It has got character. I don't care if I get a scrape on it...but you clean it up...and it looks good!!
I'm old school and new school...too. Way cheaper than a new truck...though.
Could be the plastics. One summer in the 70’s I worked as a go-fer and car washer at a Dodge dealership. Those early Dodge Colts (Mitsubishi’s) actually smelled like the inside of a beach ball, especially on a 90+ degree day.
Solution: Buy a CO detector and stick it on your dashboard or wherever convenient to see. I have had one in my airplane for years. They are about the size of a business card and maybe twice as thick. $12.00 at Spruce Aviation if you are interested. It is a pretty cheap security blanket.
People who hate fords love Government motors it seems..
meanwhile.. in other news..
The fastest most reliable four cylinder car I have driven yet was my daughter’s Focus.
My son has a Ford Explorer that he has put about 120k miles on with no complaints.
Joke (not such a great one to start!) tends to lose its punch after five intervening posts and a lengthy erratum lol.
> Never had a CO problem in my Tesla...
Even when it’s on fire?
*hehe*
you can’t kill a 04-11 Focus..
I have seen teenagers try.
About the time of Mister Obama's admin, I realized that some of any money that I spent on American cars went to the UAW, and then, of course, to the Dems. As of then, I resolved to NOT buy a UAW-built car. And, that was absolutely that.
I realized that I could buy an American-made car, non-union, and I now own a very nice Honda.
I've had this wonderful car for a whole lotta years (more than my Fords), and now I would not consider another brand.
Two (2) folks who just happened to drive my Honda, now own Hondas.
Not an advertisement, if you are looking for a new car, do your own DD.
.
Ha, yes, then it would be a problem. :)
Yup. I currently own two Explorers. Quite content.
Only non-Ford I’ve owned was a Nissan Leaf.
You can lower the vehicles’ total carbon monoxide emissions if you make the driver and passengers breathe them in.
If the recirculated air mode is putting the cabin under negative pressure, that is a problem. There is no way to effectively seal that huge (hugh?) back tailgate. Exhaust contaminated air will be, inevitably, sucked past the seal, which can lead to serious (series?) problems?
I drive a Toyota small SUV, and it does not even have a recirculate mode on the HVAC. It is always blowing outside air into the cabin.
Seems sensible to me. The only time I regret this arrangement is when I am driving past a pig farm, or something.
What is this “km” Bloomberg is barking about?
Lol... I know, earlier models too. My Daughter bought this one right after she graduated from high school and she still has it, still runs good at 300k. Only thing I had to do to it was slip a new timing belt on it just because we knew it was probably dry and could go. But I am the one who hotrods it, it’s a fun car. :)
Hers is an 01 with the double cam 2.0, I don’t know if the 04 2.3 had the same cam set up or not, but this one has variable physical cam timing. pretty cool feature that makes that little Hemi scoot at high RPM.
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