Ford India has announced a recall campaign covering its previous generation Endeavour SUV and its range of models that were manufactured at the Sanand plant between September 2017 and April 2019. The affected models are Figo hatchback, Aspire compact sedan, and Freestyle soft crossover. Total number of affected cars are more than 50,000.
The old Ford Endeavour is being recalled to fix potentially faulty front airbag inflators. The affected Endeavours were assembled at the automaker’s Chennai facility between February 2004 and September 2014. A total of 22,690 Endeavour units are recalled.
As far as the Figo family is concerned, the recall covers an entirely different issue pertaining to the wiring harness installation of Battery Management System. Ford India is currently in the process of contacting the owners individually and asking them to bring the vehicles for repairs to the nearest service station. The wiring harness will be checked and repairs would be made free of cost if the service personnel deemed it to be necessary.
The Ford Figo family has a high level of component sharing and hence, a possible flaw would span across the range. The trio is powered by a 1.2-liter petrol engine and a 1.5-liter diesel mill. The former is good for 96 hp while the latter is rated at 100 hp. Despite offering a good value of money, the Figo range didn’t quite manage to make a strong case of itself since second gen models landed in 2015.
Almost every product in Ford India’s portfolio has been experiencing steadily declining monthly sales performance of late. Including the EcoSport, all are falling short of the automaker’s expectation. Ford’s strategy for BS-VI updates is not clear as of now and we are not sure if any of the slow selling models will be retired or not.
Moving forward, Ford India is working with Mahindra & Mahindra to develop a crossover SUV based on the next generation XUV500. Both the entities will benefit from economies of scale and other synergies.
It is also being said that Ford may widen the scope of its partnership with its Indian partner which could see both brands sharing technologies, powertrains, platforms and even production facilities.
