Ford dealership investigated by NHTSA over allegation of selling Escape with outstanding recall

WASHINGTON — U.S. car security regulators are investigating whether a Ford dealership in New York complied with federal restrictions requiring dealers to not produce a new car with an superb safety remember.

NHTSA explained it had been given details indicating that Healey Brothers Ford in Beacon, N.Y., offered at minimum a person new car or truck to a client with out performing required recall repairs, according to a document unveiled Tuesday.

A information trying to find comment was still left with the dealership.

The vehicle coated by the probe is a 2021 Ford Escape compact crossover, which was recalled in August for fuel shipping and delivery modules that may leak within the gas tank, perhaps producing an motor stall. The recall influenced nearly 14,000 Escape and Lincoln Corsair autos from the 2021 product calendar year and 2021-22 Bronco Activity crossover.

Ford notified dealers Aug. 11, according to the safety remember report.

“Ford is mindful of NHTSA’s audit inquiry and will be cooperating as we often do,” Ford spokesman Karl Henkel mentioned in a assertion to Automotive Information. “When Ford sellers are independently owned, Ford communicates all recall facts to sellers and prospects in a timely method as necessary by NHTSA.”

The company, in the document, said it was investigating regardless of whether the dealership has complied with the needs of the National Targeted visitors and Motor Car Safety Act, which necessitates manufacturers to notify their dealers of defects similar to automobile protection and noncompliance with federal rules. Dealers, in flip, simply cannot deliver a new auto that is matter to a recall right up until it has been fixed, NHTSA reported.

“Protection recalls are issued because a maker has recognized a safety defect that could pose a threat to drivers, travellers and other people on the road,” a NHTSA spokesperson mentioned in a assertion to Automotive News. “NHTSA can take security recalls really seriously and urges everyone to have open up protection recollects fixed as promptly as doable. Because unrepaired recollects are a protection possibility, it is illegal for a dealership to supply a new vehicle with an outstanding basic safety recall.”

With the investigation, the company said it was trying to get further facts to ascertain no matter if Healey Brothers Ford “has complied with the prohibition on shipping of new autos with open, unrepaired recollects,” the spokesperson reported.