Ford is recalling more than 238,000 Explorers in the U.S. because a rear axle bolt can fail, potentially causing a loss of drive power or allowing the SUVs to roll away while in park.
The recall comes after U.S. safety regulators opened an investigation into the problem after getting two complaints that repairs didn’t work in two previous recalls this year and in 2022.
Affected are certain Explorers from the 2020 through 2022 model years.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says in documents posted Friday on its website that the rear axle horizontal mounting bolt can fracture and cause the driveshaft to disconnect, increasing the risk of a crash.
How in the hell did Ford manage to screw up a simple BOLT so bad that the problem is still happening after not one but two previous campaigns to fix the issue?
Could be that the bolt is too small and so is the thread in the axle. They can throw as many updated bolts at it but the underlying problem will persist as long as they don’t update the axles themselves. But that is much more expensive, so they’re not gonna do that.