6. Ford Transmission Problem
The 1970s were marked by the Ford Pinto debacle. Ford spent millions of dollars on court cases, paying the families and trying to iron out its public image. But this wasn’t the end of problems for the Ford Motor Company. The NHTSA concluded a big three-year investigation into claims all automatic transmissions they installed in their products between 1966 and 1980 had a defect. The defect could cause the car to switch from park to reverse, putting the car into motion without the control of the driver.
The situation became even worse with the discovery that Ford knew about the problem and rejected an extremely affordable solution. Suddenly, the company was facing another enormous, expensive recall and numerous lawsuits. But they managed to make a deal with the government and pay the families of the people injured in accidents due to the faulty transmission.
Ford even printed 23 million stickers which they gave to Ford owners. Drivers had to place them on their dashboards to warn them to make sure their car was in park before turning it off. Ford managed to avoid a massive recall, which would have killed the company. However, keep reading, because they didn’t learn a lesson, as you will see later.