Ford recalls more than 40,000 Bronco Sport and Escape models for fuel leak

Ford issued a recall for 42,652 examples of its 2022-2023 Bronco Sport and 2022 Escape SUVs to address a fuel leak caused by a cracked fuel injector. Vehicles equipped with 1.5-liter EcoBoost engines are included in the recall. The fix includes the installation of a drain tube to redirect any leaking fuel from the engine to the ground along with a software update that adds fuel injector leak detection to the engine control unit.

This might sound eerily familiar to owners of these particular vehicles. Back in November of 2022, Ford issued a much larger recall covering a similar range of Escape and Bronco Sport models that also included cracked fuel injectors, a flash of the ECU and a fuel drain tube. So, what's the deal?

According to documents posted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "Ford’s Internal Combustion Engines Propulsion Thermal Systems Engineering (IPTSE) team had identified leaks during component-level injector flow testing on fuel injectors recovered from two Bronco Sport vehicles that had experienced underhood fires" that happened after the original recall "clean point." In other words, these fires happened on vehicles produced after the date at which they were considered fixed.

These two vehicles had HX7G-9F597-BC fuel injectors, an improved design over the older HX7G-9F597-BB parts, and so therefore were not included in the original recall and did not receive the software update or the fuel drain tubes. "Ford’s decision not to include the updated engine control software on these vehicles was based on Ford’s assessment of the new injectors’ improved robustness," according to documents posted on the NHTSA site. Ford is aware of five underhood fires on vehicles with these updated injectors but without the updated software and drain tube.

Ford expect to mail owner notification letters in April 2024 (this month). Owners can also contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332 and reference recall number 24S16. Naturally, all repairs will be done free of charge.

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