2012 Ford Escape Limited 4wd on 2040-cars

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Ford recalling nearly 700k Escape CUVs, C-Max hybrids over two separate safety issues

Poor Escape. Ever since its launch in 2012, Ford's small CUV has been the subject of many, many, many recalls. And today, The Detroit News is reporting that Ford is adding two more recalls to the 2013-14 model year Escape's permanent record, one of them also involves the C-Max hybrid hatchback.
The first recall, covering 692,500 Escape and C-Max vehicles, is due to a software glitch that could cause the airbags - specifically, the safety canopy - to not deploy in a timely fashion during rollover crashes. According to the News, Ford says no crashes or injuries have been reported in relation to this problem.
The second recall, covering 692,700 Escapes, is related to the door handles. The News reports that the exterior door handles could open while the vehicle is in motion, and could also fail to latch properly. Once again, no crashes or injuries have occurred because of this. The National Highway Safety Traffic Administration has not issued an official notice on either recall as of this writing.

NHTSA closes Ford F-Series Super Duty steering probe without recall

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's investigation into 2008 Ford F-250 and F-350 Super Duty pickups, which was originally opened last year, has now ended without a recall. NHTSA was looking into steering failures on some 336,000 trucks.
The issue rested with the steering gear - NHTSA received five complaints of failures - which was redesigned in 2005. According to the report on the matter, investigators "found evidence of broken sector shaft gear teeth and piston damage consistent with incidents of single event overload."
NHTSA investigators, however, "found no evidence of fatigue or material property defects in any of the fractures. Analysis of complaint rates by vehicle build month showed no patterns indicating potential manufacturing quality issues and no difference before and after Ford introduced design changes to the input shaft and sector shaft seals in July 2007 to address potential leak concerns," according to the report, obtained by The Detroit News.

Blue Oval's new Cargo cab-over rig is largest "One Ford" initiative yet

The imposing commercial truck above has a feature that might be surprising to most Autoblog readers - a Blue Oval emblem on the front. Here in North America, Ford simply doesn't play in the eighteen-wheeler sandbox, but that doesn't mean that the Dearborn-based automaker is absent in the heavy hauling space in other parts of the globe. In fact, Ford presently fields two completely different big rig ranges under the Cargo moniker - one a product of an Eastern Europe/Turkey joint venture, and another from Brazil. But that's about to start changing with the advent of this new cab-over model seen here.
Unveiled in São Paulo, Brazil, this new generation of Cargo is perhaps the largest physical embodiment of CEO Alan Mulally's "One Ford" global streamlining strategy. Instead of multiple models, company engineers have developed a new single truck that it says will better meet the needs of truckers in all markets. Designed to compete in what's known as the "extra heavy-duty segment" elsewhere in the world, this Cargo was developed jointly by Ford engineering teams in Brazil, Turkey and Europe.
Specifics remain hard to come by (read: unreleased), but Ford is promising an all-new engine enabling hauling capability of up to 56 tons while still returning excellent fuel economy. Ford's global Cargo lineup will henceforth consist of a dozen models, but Ford tells Autoblog has no plans to bring this hot and heavy-duty action to North America.