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April 01, 2006
MOTHER JONES FIND DEFECTIVE INSULATION IN FORDS
A flammable material that was deemed too dangerous for military aircraft is being used in millions of Ford vehicles, a Mother Jones article asserts. It reports that Kapton, a plastic film often used to insulate wire, has been widely banned, in military aircraft and other transport vehicles. “It’s like having dynamite in your suitcase,” according to an expert quoted in the article. Yet it is “still in millions of Ford cars, trucks, and SUVs…” The article questions whether Kapton failures are a cause of many Ford ignition-system fire that have been reported over recent years.
“In the past seven years, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has investigated the role of these switches in more than 500 blazes that have ravaged cars, houses, and garages, and reportedly killed at least one person. The agency analyzed 260 cases of fires in Ford sedans—Crown Victorias, Lincoln Town Cars, and Mercury Grand Marquises—with model years between 1992 and 1997. In 1999, the company recalled nearly 300,000 of those vehicles. And by March of last year, the NHTSA had received more than 200 complaints of fires in Ford trucks—F-150 pickups, Expeditions, and Lincoln Navigators—with model years from 1995 to 2002. But Ford maintains that the root cause of the fires is too complex to fault a single component.”
Posted by MVHAP at April 1, 2006 04:52 PM