Cars and Drivers

Ford: A Brake Problem, Or A Software Upgrade?

Ford (F) has offered customers who  bought some 2010 Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids “a customer satisfaction program to update the software of the regenerative brake system.” Many media outlets are depicting this as a sort of recall. According to Reuters, “Ford’s…

By Douglas A. McIntyre
Published February 5, 2010, 5:20am ET · 1 min read

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Invalid Image
Ford (F) has offered customers who  bought some 2010 Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids “a customer satisfaction program to update the software of the regenerative brake system.” Many media outlets are depicting this as a sort of recall. According to Reuters, “Ford’s action came after Consumer Reports said one of its test engineers had experienced what appeared to be a loss of braking power with a Fusion hybrid.” The news service adds, “The No. 2 U.S. automaker by sales notified its dealers of the problem in October but not the public because it did not believe the glitch represents a failure of the brakes.”

The media descriptions and Ford’s own, raise the question of whether any car company with a glitch or something more serious in the operation of its vehicles, will be dragged into the category of Toyota which has recalled and shut down production of eight of its most popular models. The Japanese car giant also faces questions about brake safety on some of its popular Prius hybrid. The trouble has prompted an investigation by the federal government.

A Google search of the term “Ford recall” brings back results about the Fusion and Mercury Milan brake software upgrade. Some news outlet even use the term “recall” in their description of the car company actions.

Ford, it seems, has been caught up in the recall media frenzy.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

All articles →