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Photo courtesy of Ford.
Photo courtesy of Ford.
Ford Motor Co. is recalling 203,445 2014-2015 model-year Transit Connect vans and Escape SUVs in North America to fix the instrument panel clusters, the automaker said.
The recall includes 182,520 vehicles in the U.S. and federalized territories.
When a driver starts one of these vehicles, the instrument cluster, warning chimes, messages and warning lights may malfunction – a violation of federal safety standards. However, Ford said it's unaware of any accidents or injuries linked to the issue.
This recall covers Transit Connect vans built at the Valencia assembly plant in Spain in 2014, from May 13 through Dec. 10. The action also involves Escape SUVs built at the Louisville assembly plant from May 19, 2014, to Feb. 6 of this year.
In addition to the vehicles in the U.S., there are 18,226 in Canada and 2,699 in Mexico.
In a separate action, Ford is also recalling 49 2015-MY Transit vans in the U.S. to correct the seat belt labeling. These vans, acquired by a single fleet customer, have a special-order front passenger seat belt. Though these seat belts work properly, the supplier mislabeled them. The labels don’t include all the information required by federal safety standards.
Again, Ford said it isn’t aware of any accidents or injuries tied to the issue.
These Transit vans were built at the Kansas City assembly plant this year, from March 1 to April 10.
A representative selected by Ford will install a new label on the seat belt anchor that includes the required information, Ford said.
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