#Ford to recall 3 million cars over air bag concerns

Ford just lost a lengthy battle with the feds over orders to recall about 3 million cars — and it won’t be cheap.

The affected vehicles from model years 2006 through 2012 have faulty driver-side air bag inflators that could rupture and send metal fragments flying into the air.

Ford plans to replace the inflators in some 2.7 million cars in the US and about 300,000 in Canada and elsewhere at a cost of roughly $610 million, the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker said Thursday.

Ford said it filed a petition with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to get out of the recall in July 2017, arguing that the risks posed by the problematic parts were so small that they were “inconsequential to safety.”

But NHTSA disagreed and denied the petition on Tuesday, requiring Ford to conduct a recall.

The affected vehicles include Ford’s Ranger, Fusion and Edge models, along with the Lincoln MKZ/Zephyr, the Lincoln MKX and the Mercury Milan, Ford said in a securities filing.

The air bag parts were made by Takata, whose faulty inflators have led to 27 deaths and at least 400 injuries worldwide. The parts were responsible for the largest automotive recall in American history affecting more than 67 million inflators.

Ford said the cost of this recall will be treated as a special item in its fourth-quarter financial report and won’t affect the company’s adjusted earnings per share.

Ford shares were down 1 percent at $11.41 as of 11:47 a.m.

With Post wires