Complaints: Ford Focus Doors Fly Open While Driving

DEARBORN, MI – U.S. safety regulators are investigating a rash of complaints that door latches failed on about 400,000 Ford Focus vehicles, including some from motorists who said the doors flew open while they were driving and others who said they had to tie the doors to secure them.

The National Traffic Highway Safety Administration said 73 drivers have reported problems with compact cars from the 2012 and 2013 model years, the Associated Press reports.

No deaths have been reported, but a Ford Focus driver from San Antonio, TX, complained the latches are “an extreme safety hazard” and wrote that “it is just a matter of time until someone falls out of a moving vehicle and is killed or injured,” according to documents on the NHTSA’s website.

One person — the agency doesn’t identify the people who register complaints — reported being injured when the door rebounded after an attempt to close it. Other motorists said they had stopped driving the vehicles altogether because they were afraid the doors would fly open while they were driving.

Dearborn-based Ford Motor Co. reportedly told the San Antonio motorist that the automaker is aware of the door latch failures, but didn’t plan a recall. However, depending upon how often the problem occurs, the NHTSA could order Ford to recall and fix the vehicles.

The problem is similar to one last year in which Ford recalled more than 456,000 Lincoln MKZ, Ford Fusion and Ford Fiesta models.