Ford compensates Kuga plug-in hybrid owners over battery recall

The new Ford Kuga plug-in hybrid (PHEV) only went on sale in the UK earlier this year, but within a couple of months, sales of the vehicle were halted due to concerns about the batteries overheating and causing fires.  

Ford released a statement in August saying the sale of Kuga PHEVs built before 26 June 2020 had been temporarily suspended and a safety recall issued that is believed to affect up to 27,000 cars globally. 

The statement also confirmed that “four vehicle fires are likely to have been caused by the overheating of the high-voltage batteries". 

Owners who had already taken delivery of Kugas were told to only use their cars in EV auto drive mode, which is the setting the car automatically reverts to when the batteries have been run down. This means owners can’t make use of the car’s official pure electric driving range of 35 miles. 

The company had already given affected owners a free three-year service and maintenance plan as a goodwill gesture over the fault, and in October it stated they would also get a £500 fuel card to make up for the fact that their cars are less fuel-efficient than they should be. 

The latest statement sent to owners says Ford is working “with urgency to develop a complete and approved service solution for your vehicle. The reality is this solution may take longer to resolve for you than we had initially anticipated... this may be a matter of months rather than weeks.”

It also states that owners will be contacted on an individual basis when for a "rework by a Ford dealer once a complete and approved update is in place."

The Ford Kuga PHEV is a significant model for Ford because it accounted for half of the sales of the model in Europe earlier this year. Although it's not believed that any injuries have been reported as a result of the fires, the fact that multiple fires have been reported on a relatively new car is cause for concern. However, it is great to see Ford being proactive about issuing the safety recall and offering owners two forms of compensation. 

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