281,000 Ford F-150 Pickups Being Recalled
Ford is recalling approximately 280,946 Ford F-150 pickup trucks from model years 2009 and 2010. Vehicles produced between January 2008 and November 2009 may contain a faulty interior door handle that can cause the door latch to fail in an accident.
The embossment around the door handle housing may become weak after normal use and cause the door handle spring to fracture. This results in interior door handles that may appear loose or fail to return to the intended stowed position. The consequence is that the door handle spring may fail during a side impact collision, which may allow the door latch to open.
Ford will begin contacting owners later this month. It will be asking only those with trucks that the interior door handles are loose or failing to bring their vehicles in at that time. Any handles that are not returning to the stowed position correctly will be replaced with current parts. Once a proper replacement is available (possibly not involving the replacement of the full module,) Ford will contact all affected F-150 owners for an inspection on all door handles.
No injuries have been reported associated with this recall as of January 21, 2011. Ford expects corrected replacement parts to be available in mid-April 2011.