Safety regulators investigate police cars made by Ford

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Safety regulators opened a preliminary examination of Crown Victoria police cars made by Ford Motor Co after complaints about a possible defect that could lead to a loss of steering control.

The probe affects police cars made for the model years 2005 to 2008 and could affect 195,000 vehicles, documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed.

The agency received three complaints of the upper intermediate shaft separating from the steering column in the Crown Victoria police interceptor vehicles.

It also got 10 complaints that the shaft was starting to shift away from the steering column.

Separately, Ford recalled about 5,500 Ford Edge sport-utility vehicles with 2.0-liter engines to repair a defect in the fuel system that could cause a fire.

In both cases, no injuries or accidents were reported.

In the Edge recall, Ford told safety regulators that fuel line pulse damper metal housings may crack due to an improper manufacturing process that was not previously approved.

In the documents, Ford said they were told in May by their supplier for fuel-related parts that a second-tier supplier used an unapproved manual process to assemble the metal housings.

This process made the component weaker, Ford engineers determined, and in July discovered the possibility that it could cause fuel leaks in the Edge SUVs. In late August, Ford approved the recall.

The supplier of the metal fuel line pulse damper is Cooper Standard Automotive, Ford said.

The recall affects vehicles built in Oakville Assembly Plant from September 2, 2010 to October 31, 2011.

A Ford spokeswoman could not be immediately reached for comment.

(Reporting By Deepa Seetharaman in Detroit; Editing By Ryan Woo)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/safety-regulators-investigate-police-cars-made-ford-010921322--finance.html

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