Ford is recalling about 271,000 2013-14 F-150 pickups with 3.5-liter V-6 engines because the brakes may malfunction, the automaker said on Wednesday. The company said it was aware of nine accidents but no injuries.
Ford said the brake master cylinder in the affected trucks could leak fluid, and as a result it was possible that the front brakes’ “effectiveness could be reduced.” The rear brakes, which use a different hydraulic system, would still work, but typically the front brakes provide the most stopping power.
The automaker said if a pickup lost too much brake fluid, there warning lights and chimes would go off.
However, many of about 120 owners who complained to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it felt as if they had lost all stopping power, and there was no advance warning.
“The pedal went straight to the floorboard,” an owner from Yuma, Ariz., wrote last October. “I had to sharply veer off to the right to avoid slamming into another vehicle.”
The safety agency began investigating complaints in February. The agency also has owner complaints of one brake failure on a 2015 and another on 2016 model F-150, neither of which is covered by the recall.
Asked about those model years, a Ford spokeswoman, Elizabeth Weigandt, said in an email: “Our decisions are driven by the available data and we move quickly on behalf of our customers when we determine a safety recall is needed.”
The action covers about 225,000 vehicles in the United States, almost 44,000 in Canada, 400 in Mexico and small numbers in South America and Europe.
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