Pretensioner problems of the 2019 Ford Expedition

The contact owns a 2019 Ford Expedition. The contact stated that while operating the vehicle, the air bag warning light remained illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer who diagnosed and determined that the passenger’s side seat belt pretensioner was faulty and needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. Later, while driving approximately 55 mph, the front passenger’s side seat belt pretensioner suddenly deployed causing the driver to nearly lose control of the steering. During the failure there was no passenger seated in the front passenger's seat. There was no crash. The manufacturer and local dealer were notified of the failure, but no assistance was offered. The failure mileage was 97,000.

When turning into a parking lot and putting the brakes on, the explosive charge in the seat belt went off with painful compression of the chest by the seat belt in the drivers seat. The air bag did not inflate. I was able to get the seat belt off my chest, but it was fixed by the mechanism and would not extend for use after that.