Judge Affirms Calif. Ford TFI Recall

OAKLAND, Calif.--A California judge has affirmed an earlier recall order involving some 2 million Ford Motor Co. vehicles. A problem with the thick film ignition (TFI) module was allegedly causing the cars’ engines to stall.

Details of an actual recall are to come later. Ford denies all wrongdoing.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Michael Ballachey ruled that Ford sought to mislead government authorities and consumers over the alleged design defect and reliability of its vehicles. “This case was about concealment of a dangerous condition,” Ballachey said.

The lawsuit was filed in 1996, alleging that 3.5 million current and former California owners of 1983-95 Ford models were victimized by the problem.

Lawyers said the judge’s decision means that the issue would now go to a court-appointed official who will determine details for the timing and scope of the recall process.

The plaintiffs claim that in 300 Ford models sold between 1983 and 1995, the module was mounted on the distributor too close to the engine block--where high temperatures caused the units to prematurely fail.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the plaintiff lawyers charged that Ford was warned by an engineer that high temperatures would cause the device to fail and stall the engine, confirmed the problem in internal studies, and could have moved the module to a cooler spot for an extra $4 per vehicle.

According to accounts in the Chronicle and the New York Times, a preliminary order in August from Ballachey harshly criticized how Ford dealt with federal authorities, and he agreed with the plaintiffs that the company withheld information.

“Ford’s strategy, clearly established by the credible evidence, was: ‘If you don’t ask the right question, we don’t have to answer with what common sense tells us you want to know,’” Ballachey wrote.

“Ford presented a blizzard of unpersuasive statistical evidence in an attempt to disprove the obvious: That TFI modules failed in enormous numbers from the outset, that they continued to fail in unacceptable numbers for many years before being replaced by successor technology, and that they presented a serious safety risk to its consumers.”

The judge can order Ford to take the module off the distributor and remount it off the engine; replace the module with one from 1999-2000 cars; or order a buyback of the impacted vehicles.