Ford must be very concerned with the reception of the new Mach-E making its slow rollout to customers this year, because it has just recalled all of 75 cars for loose bolts.
The Mach-E recall concerns bolts that weren’t sufficiently tightened, as Automotive News reports:
Ford Motor Co. on Friday issued a recall for fewer than 75 Mustang Mach-E crossovers with defective subframe bolts, adding another hiccup for the launch of one of its newest, high-profile vehicles.
The automaker said Friday that it was not aware of any accidents or injuries, but was calling back the electric crossovers because a supplier didn’t properly tighten some bolts. Ford said roughly 94 percent of the 1,258 total affected vehicles in the U.S. and all 90 in Canada will be fixed before they reach customers. The automaker declined to give a specific number being recalled.
What makes this weird, at least to me, is that we were only just reporting on Teslas being delivered with bolts missing altogether. I don’t think either of these are problems specific to electric cars, but it is surprising that two high-profile EVs are going out without being completely tied together.
Aside from the specifics of this recall, that there was a recall at all speaks to how much work is going into getting this car out to customers. Ford has already kicked money back to some buyers over how late the car has been, and that’s just been in the limited rollout of 4,500 cars.
Charitably, you could say that Ford is paying a lot of attention to getting a very high-profile launch absolutely perfect, given its previous troubled launches of the Explorer, the Covid-bumped Bronco and the new F-150 waiting in amusement park lots. With the electric F-150 on the horizon, I’d certainly be feeling a lot of pressure, too.