Back in June, a Ford GT in Germany mysteriously caught fire and burned to the ground. Turns out, it was caused by the car’s complex hydraulic system dripping leaking fluid. Now, Ford’s just issued a recall for pretty much every GT built so far to fix the problem before more cars ignite.
The leak originates from a valve that controls the hydraulics in the rear wing assembly. The fluid can drip down onto the exhaust manifold, and if it’s hot enough, a fire can start in the engine bay. The GT uses hydraulics to control its aerodynamics and suspension components, capable of lowering itself in just a fraction of a second. It’s cool to watch and incredibly effective, but not cool enough to risk lighting the car on fire.
According to Car and Driver, a total of 194 of the 650-horsepower Ford supercars are affected, 176 of which were sold in the United States. The recall includes cars built from December 20th, 2017 all the way up to July 31st of 2018. Ford will install hydraulic check valves, hydraulic fluid filters, as well as all applicable O-rings to cars that don’t already have them equipped. The cars will also receive a software update to insure there isn’t any excessive pressure in the system. Hopefully that won’t affect the speed of the GT’s transformation from street to track mode.
Considering the severity of this problem, we urge every GT owner reading this to get the problem fixed as soon as possible. If you don’t own a GT, don’t worry—Ford will soon be reopening applications to purchase a GT as it prepares for its second production run of 500 cars. And it goes without saying that all of those cars will have this issue fixed from the factory.
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