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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.

Scandal-rocked UAW extends Ford, FCA contracts, prepares to strike GM

DETROIT — Leaders of the United Auto Workers union have extended contracts with Ford and Fiat Chrysler indefinitely, but the pact with General Motors is still set to expire Saturday night. The move puts added pressure on bargainers for both sides as they approach the contract deadline and the union starts to make preparations for a strike. The contract extension was confirmed Friday by UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg, who declined further comment on the talks. The union has picked GM as the target company, meaning it is the focus of bargaining and would be the first company to face a walkout. GMÂ’s contract with the union is scheduled to expire at 11:59 p.m. Saturday. ItÂ’s possible that the four-year GM contract also could be extended or a deal could be reached, but itÂ’s more likely that 49,200 UAW members could walk out of GM plants as early as Sunday because union and company demands are so far apart. Picket line schedules already have been posted near the entrance to one local UAW office in Detroit. Art Wheaton, an auto industry expert at the Worker Institute at Cornell University, expects the GM contract to be extended for a time, but he says the gulf between both sides is wide. “GM is looking through the windshield ahead, and it looks like nothing but land mines,” he said of a possible recession, trade disputes and the expense of developing electric and autonomous vehicles. “I think thereÂ’s really going to be a big problem down the road in matching the expectations of the union and the willingness of General Motors to be able to give the membership what it wants.” Plant-level union leaders from all over the country will be in Detroit on Sunday to talk about the next steps, and after that, the union likely will make an announcement. But leaders are likely to face questions about an expanding federal corruption probe that snared a top official on Thursday. Vance Pearson, head of a regional office based near St. Louis, was charged with corruption in an alleged scheme to embezzle union money and spend cash on premium booze, golf clubs, cigars and swanky stays in California. ItÂ’s the same region that UAW President Gary Jones led before taking the unionÂ’s top office last year. Jones and other union executives met privately at a hotel at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Friday. After the meeting broke up, JonesÂ’ driver and others physically blocked an AP reporter from trying to approach him to ask questions.

Crowdsource funding push on to save historic Ford buildings

Detroit has no shortage of old, abandoned buildings, both within the city and in the surrounding communities. Few, though, have the historical significance of the old Ford Highland Park facility. Home to the very first moving assembly line, Highland Park was designed by the legendary Albert Kahn, and was one of the homes of the Model T.
Now, the Woodward Avenue Action Association is attempting to buy both the 40,000-square-foot admin building, which is located off the historic Woodward Avenue, and an 8,000-square-foot garage. The WAAA's goal is to convert the buildings into an automotive heritage center. The Detroit News spoke to the interim director of the WAAA, Deborah Schutt, who commented, "[Metro Detroit has] not been very good at telling our own story. So we've decided, let's pull everything together and tell our story."
The WAAA made an offer of $550,000 to buy the two buildings, and has $400,000 from the Michigan Department of Transportation and another $15,000 from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. It's trying to raise a further $125,000 through crowd-sourcing, starting a campaign called "Five Dollars A Day," after old Hank Ford's $5-per-day wage for line workers.