Local Ford owner happy with Ford's truck recall announcement

Friday, January 28th 2005, 10:11 am

By: News On 6

Ford Motor Company is recalling hundreds of thousands of its best-selling trucks this week. It's believed a bad cruise-control switch can cause the truck to burst into flames. Not just can, but "did", according to a Rogers County woman.

News on 6 reporter Steve Berg says nobody was happier than Trisha Delozier to hear that Ford had recalled the vehicles. â€œIâ€™m glad. I mean if it hadn't taken place, they were going to have a death from that."

She should know. In her garage a month ago, her 2000 Ford F-150 burst into flames. Luckily it burned itself out before it got to the house, but not before taking most of the truck and most of her belongings in the garage with it. "Oh, three bikes, tanning bed, course all the stuff you work on your yard with."

The investigator that was hired by her insurance company says the fire started with the cruise control. Thursday, Ford announced it was recalling 792,000 trucks including 2000 model F-150's, Ford Expeditions, and Lincoln Navigators and 2001 F-Series Supercrew trucks with cruise control, because of the faulty switch. "Y'know, that was the most important thing to me that they admitted there was a problem and get those vehicles off the road. I know it's a lot of them, but."

But it comes too late for Delozier and for the 5-dozen or so other reported cases nationwide. "They should do the right thing and take care of me and all the others that have lost things in these fires because of these vehicles." But she says she's not mad, she's just glad her family's okay. She even bought another Ford. "I just really think that was a fluke deal. They just need to take care of it, do the right thing and nobody's going to quit buying Fords, that are really Ford fans."

So far, Delozier says Ford is refusing to pay for the belongings she lost in the fire. As for the other trucks in question, Ford says owners should take them to a dealer to have the cruise control switch disconnected, until it can be fixed or at least park the truck in the open.