| Subject: | Rear axle bolt failure |
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| Investigations Summary: | On March 30, 2023 and April 14, 2022, Ford motor company (Ford) filed two safety recalls (NHTSA recall 23v-199 and 22v-255) on certain model year (my) 2020-2022 Ford explorer vehicles produced from October 2, 2019 to April 11, 2022. This recall addressed the rear axle horizontal mounting bolt that may fracture and cause the driveshaft to disconnect. The fracturing of the rear axle bolt can allow the rear axle housing to move out of position, resulting in severe noise, vibration and/or a disconnected driveshaft. A functioning driveshaft and transmission parking pawl is necessary to hold the vehicle in park. The loss of the vehicle?s transmission primary-park will cause the vehicle to roll away while being placed into the ?park? position, increasing the risk of crash and injury. Ford?s remedy was to add a software update which automatically applies the electronic service parking brake to keep the vehicle from rolling away in the event of a driveshaft failure. However, there is no safety remedy addressing the failed rear axle horizontal mounting bolt which is the basis of this safety issue and the cause of the impaired vehicle. Odi has received 2 complaints alleging a loss of motive power and/or loss of transmission torque of the rear wheels in my 2021 Ford explorer vehicles due to failure of the rear axle bolts. These vehicles were included in the cited recall and remedied prior to the reported incidents. A recall query has been opened to assess the remedy of recalls 23v-199, and 22v-255. The odi complaints cited above can be viewed at NHTSA. Gov under the following odi identification numbers: 11517162, and 11499008. |
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