Nearly 340,000 Ford Explorers from the 2017 model year will need a trip to the dealership soon, but not to be traded for new ones with a bit more power and ST badges all over—unless that’s your thing. Instead, it’s for a new recall, because the SUVs have been rolling around for years now with sharp seat edges. Scary!
No, actually, it is kind of scary, because apparently people keep getting hand injuries on the seats.
Ford announced the recalls on Friday, saying certain 2017 Explorer models have an “improperly coined seat-frame edge.” The models that may be affected have power seats, and those sharp seat frames could take a stab at your hand when reaching between a power front seat and the center console. A lot of seat frames have done that, actually, with Ford saying that it’s “aware of 31 reports of hand injuries attributed to this condition.” That’s not great.
The recall includes a full 338,332 vehicles built at Ford’s Chicago plant between Feb. 13 of 2016 and Oct. 25, 2017, with 311,907 in the U.S. and federal territories, 23,380 in Canada and 3,045 in Mexico. The plan is for dealers to make the edges less edgy with flocked tape, and there are more details on the recall here.
But until the recall is done on your Explorer, maybe don’t reach between the seats. Your phone isn’t that important, after all, and you could use the break from Twitter anyway.