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NHTSA investigating 725k Ford, Mercury vehicles for stalling issue

Owners of Ford Escape, Mercury Mariner, Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan models, listen up. According to a report on Automotive News, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into these four vehicles totaling an estimated 725,000 units. The investigation appears to center around a malfunctioning throttle body on non-hybrid models of the 2005-2012 Escape and 2011-2012 Fusion. With Mercury dying off after the 2011 model year, this probe will also apply to the 2005 through 2011 Mariner and the 2011 Milan. There has been some discussion around the Escape stalling issue for some time now, but this investigation appears to be larger in scope than before.
Though not a recall yet, NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) has received 123 complaints of stalling or surging vehicles, while Ford itself has logged 1,472 complaints. The investigation report, which is posted below, seems to indicate that a faulty circuit board for the throttle body could cause the vehicle to go into limp mode, which, according to NHTSA, could cause complaints of both stalling and surging.

The 1965 Ford Mustang could have looked a lot different

The 1965 Ford Mustang is unquestionably an automotive design icon, and nearly every generation of Mustang has some connection to that original car. Because it's such a universally-known vehicle, we were amazed to see all the different designs that were being considered. Head of Ford's archives Ted Ryan recently shared photos of design proposals for the original Mustang on Twitter that he and Jamie Myler found, and we reached out to them to find out more. As Ryan initially noted, the photos were taken on August 19, 1962, and they are proposals for the Ford Mustang. Apparently Ford had committed to doing a Falcon-based youth-oriented car at this point, and it did have plans to launch the car in 1964 for the 1965 model year. But after having little success with early design proposals, the company asked all of its design studios — the Advanced Studio, Lincoln-Mercury Studio and Ford Studio — to submit proposals. With only about two years before the planned launch, Ford was understandably short on time, and it's believed that the studios only had a month to create and present these designs. Lincoln-Mercury design proposal View 8 Photos The majority of the designs, a total of five, came from the Advanced Studio, and part of this was because they already had a couple of concept designs in reserve it could present. Two other models representing three design possibilities came from Lincoln-Mercury, and just one model with two options came from Ford. The Advanced Studio proposals are shown in the gallery at the very top of this article, and the Lincoln-Mercury and Ford proposals are in the gallery directly above this paragraph. The Advanced Studio's most radical design is the one that was clearly related to the Mustang I concept that would be shown later that year with huge wraparound rear glass, turbine-inspired bumpers and enormous side scoops. The other proposals from the studio were more conservative, featuring simple lines, grilles reminiscent of the Falcon, and one even borrowing the jet-thruster-style taillights made famous on the Thunderbird. Lincoln-Mercury had some impressively bold designs, particularly its fastback that had buttresses to extend the shape all the way to the tail. This car had two different side trim possibilities. The other Lincoln-Mercury design was toned down a bit, but had two interesting possibilities for side detailing, as well as some crisp, low-profile tail fins.

Ford finds flex-fuel engine design plays big role in emissions output

How bad is ethanol for your engine? There's been a lot of debate on this issue as the US considers upping the biofuel content in the national gasoline supply from 10 percent (E10) to 15 percent (E15). The ethanol industry and some scientists say higher ethanol blends show no "meaningful differences" in new engines while the oil industry says ethanol creates health risks. Researchers working at the Ford Research and Innovation Center decided to take a closer look at how a wide range of gas-ethanol blends - E0, E10, E20, E30, E40, E55 and E80 - affected the emissions coming out of a flex-fuel 2006 Mercury Grand Marquis. To see the full report, printed in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, requires payment, but there is an abstract and Green Car Congress has some more details. The gist is that, "with increasing ethanol content in the fuel, the tailpipe emissions of ethanol, acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, methane, and ammonia increased." At least NOx and NMHC emissions decreased. The researchers say that the effects are due to the fuel and "are expected for all FFVs," but that the way that a manufacturer calibrates the engine will affect NOx, THC, and NMOG emissions. It's this last bit that's important, since the researchers found, "Higher ethanol content in gasoline affects several fundamental fuel properties that can impact emissions. ... These changes can have positive or negative effects that can depend on engine design, hardware, and control strategy. In addition to direct emissions impacts, higher ethanol content fuel can also provide more efficient combustion and overall engine operation under part-load conditions and under knock-limited higher-load conditions." So, as we head towards more ethanol in our fuel supply (maybe), manufacturers are going to need to learn how to burn it most efficiently.