She said the family is going public to help avoid more such tragedies. Justine Bowman said she is considering suing Ford. 15 crash but had not reached any conclusions in the case. Both concluded the vehicle’s axle “broke in half – from the inside – from corrosion,” Brody said.Ī NHTSA spokeswoman said the agency sent a team to inspect Bowman’s vehicle following the Oct. The family’s lawyer, Rick Brody, said he has hired private experts to investigate the cause of the accident. Photos of the crash provided by his family show the rear axle broken in half, with rust visible. On the day of the crash, Bowman, 28, a Coast Guard veteran with two daughters, ages 4 and 7, was on his way to a community college, where he was studying architectural design. It told dealers replacement rear axles wouldn’t be available until 2011. dealers, Ford said it would begin stocking parts in November that would allow mechanics to reinforce axles that did not yet have cracks. NHTSA said at the time that only about 75,000 recalled vehicles had been brought to dealers, and it issued the advisory because of the severity of the defect. In a November advisory, NHTSA urged Windstar owners to bring their vehicles to a dealership immediately to be examined for signs of rear-axle corrosion. Complaints were sporadic for the next several years but became more frequent in mid-2008.
#Windstar death road to canada cracked#
The recall was expanded to Utah and to all 2003 vehicles in the road-salt states.Ĭomplaints about Windstar axle cracks date to at least December 2000, when an owner reported to NHTSA that a mechanic found a cracked rear axle in a 2000 minivan.
The company said it began notifying owners of the 37,000 additional Windstars on Dec.
The automaker said on Wednesday that it was adding 37,000 minivans to the initial recall, bringing the total number of Windstars covered to 612,000 in the U.S. Ford said none of the injuries were serious. The Center for Auto Safety, a consumer safety group, said the defect had been blamed for eight crashes and three injuries as of September. The automaker said that as of September, 950 complaints about the axles were filed with NHTSA, the most recent figures available. The recall covered vehicles from model years 1998 to 2003 that were sold in states where the heavy use of road salt can cause more corrosion, including New England, the mid-Atlantic and the Great Lakes region. 27 that it was recalling 575,000 older-model Windstars in the U.S. Some repair parts are unavailable, and one Windstar owner said her car has been sitting at a dealership awaiting repair for four months.įord announced on Aug. Ord appears to be having trouble keeping up with the size of the recall. Industry officials say notifications take time because automakers rely primarily on states’ motor vehicle records to determine who owns the vehicles. And owners typically are notified within 30 days. “We send individualized letters to customers with affected vehicles and go beyond government requirements for recall notifications.”Īutomakers are required by federal law to notify owners by mail “within a reasonable amount of time,” according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “Ford is committed to safety,” said spokesman Wes Sherwood. The announcement was carried by news organizations at the time. declined to comment on Bowman’s case, but Ford said the recall was no secret. This is your rear axle can break, you can lose control of your vehicle, your wheels can fall off,” the Whitman resident said Wednesday.įord Motor Co. “This is not your average, everyday recall. Bowman’s widow, Justine Bowman, called it a “stealth” recall.
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