Mustang News
Ford Recalls 470,000 Mustangs
By All Ford Mustangs News Desk
Mar 5, 2008, 2008-03-05

If you are the owner of a Ford Mustang manufactured between the years of 2005 and 2008, the Ford Motor company wants your vehicle. Following a rash of automotive recalls, an estimated 470,000 Ford Mustangs have been recalled because the cars do not comply with a neck injury law as part of the Federal Motor vehicle Safety Standard No. 208.

The requirement in question is for “Occupant Crash Protection,” for a fifth percentile female sitting in the passenger seat without her seatbelt while the seat is in the full front position. The air bag deploys with strong force, which government officials believe place smaller passengers at serious risk of personal injury.

According to the recall, if a small adult or a child is seated in the front passenger seat without a seat belt and the car is as far to the front of the car as possible, there could be a higher risk of neck injury if there is an accident with air bag deployment.

When affected Ford Mustangs are brought into dealerships for service, the dealers will offer to reprogram, for free, the restraint control module. The software will be reprogrammed to scale back the amount of force the air bag uses when it deploys. Mustang owners will receive a letter from Ford by March 2008 to have their free service scheduled.

The recall was scheduled to start on February 28. Ford has said that there have been no reports of injuries due to the air bag issue.

Ford has been plagued by a rash of bad publicity as the result of extensive recalls. Less than three months before the Mustang recall was announced, Ford endured a wave of industry scorn after it was forced to recall over one million of its extremely popular SUVs, including the Explorer, and trucks, including the F-150, over a incorrectly functioning sensor.

Ford was also in the news recently when the government urged over 4 million Ford owners to bring their cars in to Ford dealerships to fix a faulty cruise control system. The cruise control problem could cause vehicle fires. Ford reports three deaths linked to the problem. Eight million vehicles were recalled in response to the issue, but less than half of all vehicles have been brought in for service. The government estimates that 4.6 million vehicles with the faulty cruise control switches are still on the road.

The Mustang recall comes at a bad time for Ford and the Mustang brand. Sales dropped for 2007 and in the first month of 2008. The news isn't any better looking into the future. For several years, Ford's Mustang was the only muscle car left, but with the reintroduction of the Chevy Camaro and the Dodge Challenger, Ford faces an uphill battle if it expects sales to increase. Ford plans a subtle redesign of the current fifth generation Mustang before launching the all new sixth generation Mustang just in time to compete with its resurrected muscle car brethren