A trio of Ford Mustang Mach-E owners is suing the company over what it says is an unresolved safety issue. Allegedly, a battery connector that can overheat needs more attention than Ford is giving it and these owners are fed up. Affected vehicles can be completely immobilized should the connector fail and that danger has these Mustang owners bucking at the brand.
First reported by the Detroit Free Press, the federal lawsuit says that despite a recall meant to address the problem, Ford doesn’t actually have a solution at this point. It all surrounds what the filing says is “a uniformly designed defective high voltage battery main contactor that could overheat, thereby immobilizing the vehicle or making it lose power during operation. The contactors on these vehicles are prone to fail during ordinary and foreseeable driving situations.”
That contactor was the subject of a June 2022 recall where Ford said that both Direct Current fast charging as well as repeated wide-open pedal events could cause it to overheat. When that takes place, the contactor could end up remaining open or even weld itself closed. Either way, the result is the same: a Mustang Mach-E without power.
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Ford said at the time that an over-the-air update could fix the problem but these plaintiffs see it differently. In its most basic form, the lawsuit seems to indicate that rather than utilize an over-the-air update to remedy the overheating situation, Ford should replace the part altogether. In the suit, it specifically says “If Ford is simply cutting power through the ‘over the air’ software update, recharge times will be much slower and acceleration times will be longer.”
For its part, Ford is saying that not only does it not know of any injuries related to the recall but that it hasn’t even been served with the suit at this point. In addition, it clarified that the recall is meant to protect the contactor and that hardware replacement would be included if necessary.
