Seat belt fires spark recall of two million Ford F-150 trucks
Enlarge / A 2016 Ford F-150 truck. (credit: Ford)
Ford is recalling two million of its popular F-150 pickup trucks after discovering that a seat belt component called the pretensioner has the potential to start a fire if the truck gets in an accident.
Ford says that it has received 17 reports of seatbelt-related smoke or fire in F-150s in the United States and six more in Canada. There have been no reports of injuries as a result.
What's a seatbelt pretensioner? Modern cars and trucks have sensors that can detect when a crash is underway and rapidly deploy the vehicle's safety features in a fraction of a second. In addition to deploying the airbags, a vehicle will also trigger seatbelt pretensioners that jerk the seatbelts a couple inches tighter, pulling passengers into their seats.
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