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Ford Mustang EcoBoost has fake engine soundtrack

The 2015 Ford Mustang EcoBoost represents a huge change for the Blue Oval as the first pony car in decades to be available with a four-cylinder engine. But a recent tweet (below) from Road & Track raised our curiosity about the new vehicle. Editor Jason Cammisa pulled a fuse while driving the latest 'Stang with the 2.3-liter EcoBoost engine, and he found that both the stereo and engine went quiet in the cabin. That indicated the coupe might have some form of artificial engine sound being piped in - a feature not previously heavily reported for the model. Autoblog spoke with Ford engineer Shawn Carney who confirmed that only the turbocharged four-cylinder Mustang comes with this system, called Active Noise Control.
@jasoncammisa pulls fuse 27 on 4cyl #2015mustang EcoBoost. Both stereo & engine go quiet. #FakeEngineNoise #busted! pic.twitter.com/WNzQefCbtQ

- Road & Track (@RoadandTrack) September 17, 2014

Ford announces fix for 2021 Expedition and Lincoln Navigator fires

In the middle of May, Ford announced a recall of around 39,000 Ford Expeditions and Lincoln Navigators from the 2021 model year due to fires starting under the hoods of the SUVs. At the time, Ford had received 16 incident reports, 14 of them happening with rental vehicles. The automaker cautioned owners to park their vehicles outside and away from structures while engineers figured out what was happening and how to fix the problem. Since that May announcement, five more fires have been reported, four of them rental vehicles, and there's been one burn injury. The company announced it understands the problem and has a fix, at the same time widening the scope of potentially affected vehicles. Instead of recalling 39,013 units built between December 1, 2020, and April 30, 2021, the recall now includes 66,221 vehicles assembled from July 27, 2020, to Aug. 31, 2021. The suspected culprit is a circuit board provided by a supplier that changed manufacturing location during the pandemic. Ford's press release on the matter stated that "circuit boards produced at this facility are uniquely susceptible to a high-current short." The affected vehicles are fitted with either an 800-watt or 700-watt cooling fan system. About a third of the recalled population are fitted with the former, and should get a quick fix at the dealer. On these SUVs, techs will inspect the battery junction box. If they find evidence of melting, they'll replace the whole box. If not, they'll simply remove the engine fan ground wire that runs to the battery junction box; since this ground relay is redundant, the change doesn't alter operation of the fans.  Owners with the 700-watt system might need to wait until September for a fix. These vehicles need an auxiliary relay box with a wire jumper, but the parts aren't available now.   Ford's notifying all owners via the FordPass app, and will follow up with owners of the 700-watt cooling system once the parts are in stock. Until their vehicles are fixed, Ford says the SUVs are safe to drive but that they should still be parked outside and away from structures. The somewhat mixed messaging — 'Yes, your cars are safe to drive, but they could catch fire so don't park them near anything flammable' — encouraged a group of owners to file suit against Ford. Owners with questions can contact Ford customer service at 866-436-7332 and reference recall No. 22S36.

Ford pulls official support from top-level NHRA teams

As the smallest team in the sport, it wasn't really a surprise when Dodge decided to pull out of NASCAR, but Autoweek is reporting that Ford is looking to pull the plug on its professional-level NHRA sponsorships following the 2014 season. With attendance and television ratings down, the article reports that Ford is just backing out of the top series but will remain active in the Sportsman classes of racing, which are geared more toward the grassroots and semi-professional racers.
This means that one of drag racing's biggest names, John Force, will be left looking for new sponsorship after next season. Force, 64, has been with Ford for 17 years, winning 15 championships in that time and winning almost half of all Funny Car events in his Mustang since he started working with Ford in 1997, but after 2014, there could be some big shakeups at John Force Racing.
According to the report, Force would consider is moving over to the Top Fuel dragster series, although he could also move to another manufacturer to remain in the Funny Car series. With Ford on the way out, this leaves just Toyota and Dodge as the remaining active automakers in the highest levels of drag racing.