The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened a preliminary investigation of Ford Motor Co.'s F-150 pickup trucks and Expedition and Navigator sport-utility vehicles after complaints of engine fires.
The inquiry involves 644,000 vehicles from the 2000 model year and comes after 36 reports of engine fires that may be related to a cruise-control deactivation switch, NHTSA said on its Web site. The fires occurred while the vehicles were parked and the engine was off, with no accidents or injuries reported, the agency said.
Ford, the second-largest U.S. automaker, is cooperating with the agency, company spokesman Dan Jarvis said. He declined further comment, saying the review just started. The F-150 accounts for the majority of Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford's F-Series pickups, the top-selling U.S. vehicle line.
NHTSA's investigations begin with a preliminary evaluation, about 25 percent of which are designated for further review while the remainder are closed. The second stage, called an engineering analysis, leads to a recall in more than seven of 10 cases.
NHTSA also said it is investigating 106,000 of Nissan Motor Co.'s 2003 and 2004 Murano sport-utility vehicles because the alternator may fail and cause stalling. The agency said it received 29 complaints that the engine stalled or wouldn't accelerate while running and sometimes couldn't be restarted. There were no accidents or injuries reported.
Nissan, whose U.S. headquarters are in Gardena, Calif., didn't immediately return calls requesting a comment. The company is Japan's second-biggest automaker, after Toyota Motor Corp. General Motors Corp. is the world's largest automaker.
