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Escape, Tribute Continue Ford Fire Tradition

The little SUVs can go up in flames with no warning

By Joe Benton
ConsumerAffairs.com

January 13, 2008    Spanish
A Beaverdam, Virginia home is the latest casualty in the familiar story of a trusted family vehicle erupting into a blazing inferno. This fire occurred just a week before Christmas.

The garage that housed Janet's Mazda Tribute

The home belonged to a ConsumerAffairs.com reader named Janet who told us that “we lost everything. I hope enough folks hear about this so that it doesn't happen to anyone else.”

Two of Janet's family cats perished in the fire and a third was badly burned and is recovering at an animal hospital. A child was injured by the smoke that filled the house and most of the home's contents were burned as the structure crumbled into asks.

The remains of Janet's home

The Beaverdam homeowner blames the fire on her 2002 Mazda Tribute. The small SUV was recalled in May 2007 because of a faulty ABS system. The ABS “module may overheat resulting in burning odor, smoke or fire,” according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recall notice. An electrical short, NHTSA reported, might cause the malfunction.

Janet said she did not receive the recall notice from Mazda.

“We were not notified and did not know there was a problem until after our Mazda caught on fire. Since then we've heard from several people who knew there was a problem with fire in these vehicles,” she said.

What's left of Janet's Mazda Tribute

There is a strong connection between the Beaverdam fire and the Ford Motor Co. Ford is Mazda’s largest shareholder and owns 33.4 percent of the company. Ford routinely advises consumers who have suffered a vehicle fire to call their insurance company.

That's not much comfort to Janet, who lost her home and most of its contents.

"The firemen got a few things out but we're not sure how much can be salvaged. We had 3 cats. One escaped but is burned and still at the vets’. The other 2 perished in the fire. We lost the Mazda and our second car suffered paint damage and smells of smoke. My daughter had some minor problems with her eyelids due to the smoke. We lost so many things of sentimental value, it would be impossible to place a value on them,” she wrote ConsumerAffairs.com.

The 2007 Mazda recall covered 95,300 Tribute SUVs. The Tribute is similar to the Ford Escape. Both are built on the same platform in an effort maximize profits for the two automakers. Both went on sale in 2001 and share many parts in common.

At the same time Mazda recalled the Tribute, Ford recalled 541,760 Escape SUVs because of an identical problem with the ABS system.

Common problem

Some recent reports from readers:

James of Monroe MI (02/21/07):
I own a 2001 Ford Escape and when I got up to go to work this morning and went to the garage to leave my car was on fire.

I popped the hood and it was coming from the ABS brake control box. The brake system had all been burned and melted. When I did some investigating online I saw that there had been other reports of this happening to the same make and year as my Escape. This seems to be a big concern as besides being extremely dangerous. It is also quite costly to fix.

I called the dealership and told them because I wondered if there were ant recalls because of this but they said no. Does someone have to die before they do something?

Keith of Brandon MS (03/21/07):
Last night at 4 am I was awakened by my daughter who heard a loud noise in the driveway. When I went to the front door I saw that my wife's 2001 Ford Escape was on fire.

After the Fire Department put out the fire the inspector stated the fire had started near the brake booster.

Angela of Jacksonville FL (03/30/07):
My 2001 Ford Escape had been parked for 2 days when in the late afternoon hours my alarm started going off. The vehicle was not locked, so the factory alarm should not have gone off at all.

I saw smoke rolling out of the engine compartment. The car had not moved in 2 days and my brother came to the truck with me. We popped the hood and smoke was everywhere, but primarily coming from underneath the brake reservoir. You could tell by the smell that it was an electrical issue as the wires were melting and burning.

Kara of Edmond OK (05/30/07):
I noticed a lot of smoke coming up through the hood of the vehicle. I immediately pulled back up into the driveway told my daughter to get out and I jumped out of the drivers side.

By the time I got around to the front of the car, smoke was billowing out from beneath the vehicle. The smoke was so thick. I guess where the braking system is was burned and melted.

Lots of recalls, lots more fires

The incidents cited above occurred before the May 2007 Mazda Tribute and Ford Escape recalls affecting 637,060 vehicles.

Federal regulators at NHTSA along with the automaker have repeatedly closed the books on Ford fires, declaring their mission accomplished.

Ford concedes that the company has recalled an additional 9.5 million trucks because of fire concerns with the cruise control deactivation switch but the total number of Ford vehicles recalled because of fire hazards exceeds 10 million. A Ford spokesman agreed that “ it's correct to say that the handful of recalls were related to the same issue.”

The most recent recall for Fords that might catch fire involved 3.6 million vehicles in August 2007.

Daniel Jarvis who works as a spokesman for Ford Safety Policy told ConsumerAffairs.com that “it's important to note a key difference between the earlier recalls and the one announced in August 2007: Based on our own internal investigation and one conducted by NHTSA, the August '07 voluntary recall of 3.6 million vehicles did not have a vehicle population with a higher-than-average of fires, as defined by NHTSA.”

Jarvis said that “the real story in the August 2007 recall is that Ford proactively and voluntarily recalls those vehicles not based on reports of fires, but to alleviate customer concerns.”

Photos furnished by ConsumerAffairs.com readers

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