If you purchased, or plan to buy the new Ford Explorer or Lincoln Aviator, you will want to know about a safety compliance recall issued for those vehicles.
The Ford Motor Company issued the recall Wednesday morning on select 2020 Ford Explorers and Lincoln Aviators due to a potentially missing manual park release cover. The automaker said if the cover is not installed properly, the manual parking brake released may be compromised, resulting in the vehicle moving involuntarily and raising the likelihood of a crash. There may also be a malfunction with the main instrument panel.
"The instrument cluster of affected vehicles may be in factory mode, which disables warning alerts and chimes and does not display the PRNDL gear positions and which gear is selected," the recall notice said. "Factory mode is used to reduce battery drain during the production process. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards require the gear positions and selected gear to be displayed whenever the shifter is not in park."
Ford said fewer than 14,000 vehicles sold in the U.S. and just 239 in Canada are affected. There have been no reported collisions on public roads as a result of the defect, but the automaker said one mishap occurred in transport during the production process.
The vehicles were built at the Chicago Assembly Plant. The Explorer in question was produced between March 27 and July 24 of this year, while the Aviator was produced between April 10 and July 24.
Ford dealers will inspect for the manual park release cover and install one if it is necessary. Dealers will also inspect the instrument cluster and clear out any diagnostic codes. The reference code for this recall is 19-C-06.