Ford Motor Co. (F) announced its third round of vehicle safety recalls since early last month. The automaker will recall 35,000 units of pickup trucks and crossover in two sets in the U.S. and Canada in order to fix fuel leaks and electrical shorts in the vehicles that could lead to fires.
The first set of recalls involves 25,000 units of 2010 Ranger pickup trucks for possible fuel line leaks in the engine compartment. They were manufactured between October 2009 and May 2010.
Meanwhile, the second set of recalls includes 9,100 units of Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX mid-size crossovers, and Ford F150, F250, F350, F450 and F550 trucks. They were produced between October 25, 2010 and November 20, 2010.
Ford stated it is unaware of any fires or injuries due to the possible defects in the vehicles. Owners will be requested to bring their vehicles in mid-March to dealers for repairs.
In early February, Ford recalled more than 1,600 units of its newly launched Explorer sports utility vehicle due to a safety problem with the second row of seats. The vehicles were manufactured between July and December 2010. The company revealed that the seats were built by Lear Corp (LEA). The seats had manual reclining mechanisms that did not meet federal safety standards.
Again, in the last week of February, Ford recalled 144,000 units of its best selling pickup truck, F-150, in the U.S. and Canada. The announcement followed a request made by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to fix a glitch with the front air bags.
Automotive safety recalls were brought into focus by media after Toyota Motors’ (TM) announcement of the largest-ever global recall of 14 million vehicles since November 2009.
The Japanese automaker’s recall was related to problems such as faulty accelerator gas pedals and slipping floor mats as well as defective braking systems. The Transportation Department of U.S. also imposed a fine of $48.4 million due to late recall of millions of defective vehicles.
In 2011 till date, Ford recalled more than 1 million vehicles, including 507,000 units of F-150 pickups and 525,000 units of its Windstar minivans due to a corrosion related problem. There have been more than nearly 600,000 vehicles recalled throughout 2010.
Ford, a Zacks #3 Rank (Hold) stock, posted a 24% fall in profit to $1.2 billion or 30 cents per share (before special items) in the fourth quarter of 2010 from $1.58 billion or 43 cents per share (before special items) in the same quarter of 2009. With this, the automaker has missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 19 cents per share.
The decline in profit was attributable to lower year-over-year revenues generated by the company’s automotive operations as well as the financial arm. Total revenue during the quarter ebbed 7% to $32.5 billion. However, excluding revenues from Volvo, sales improved by $1.6 billion or 5% from the fourth quarter of 2009.
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