Ford Motor Co. recalling F-series pickup trucks due to faulty latch

The surging popularity of pickup trucks as the new emerging choice to spend some extra dough with their luxury models rolling out has not come with a few setbacks. Just recently in a hapless incident Fiat Chrysler’s Ram prematurely revealed to the public eye their new model’s look and all it took was a lousy gush of wind and a lucky photographer and not with the usual fireworks and balloons reception.

Ford Motor Co. has recently announced that the company will be recalling 1.3 million units of their F-series pickups from their loyal customers due a potentially hazardous problem with the door latch. That minor factory defect could lead to injury or worst if the door unexpectedly opens while the truck is on the move.

They revealed that their F-150 and Super Duty pickups may have side doors that do not close properly even though they appear to be due to a malfunctioning door latch. And because of this same problem the driver might also find it hard to open the side doors at some point. Although they are glad to announce that there are neither accidents nor unfortunate injuries that have been reported because of this problem, they choose to do some precautionary steps. Once they have recalled the affected units they will be installing water shields for the door latches to fix this potentially fatal defect in design.

The cost of the repair is at an estimated price tag of $267 million which is a blow that will be felt by Ford since the F-Series pickup trucks contribute the biggest bulk of the company’s profits. There are about 1.1 million of these trucks in the United States alone, while more than 200,000 units are in Canada and a little over 21,000 units are in Mexico.

Even though that the timing of all this is not optimal, especially since Jim Hackett, the new chief executive just recently talked to investors about cutting cost and pushing towards more sustainable models in the future to compete with the evolving market, you can be sure the F-150 series will survive this rough patch as it always has through the past decades.