Nation: Total Recall?

U.S. warns; Ford resists

A driver brakes and shifts into park. His passenger jumps out while the engine is running and slams the door. The transmission pops into reverse, and the car lurches backward. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last week made an "initial determination" that some such sequence has been happening often enough to Ford Motor Co. vehicles to suggest a flaw in their automatic-transmission design. It was a step toward ordering the biggest recall in history, involving some 16 million Ford cars and trucks built between 1972 and 1979.

The NHTSA said it had received 23,000 complaints, which included...

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