Ford Vehicle

The company admits no wrongdoing in the settlement. The agreement, which still needs a judge’s approval, would end a consumer-protection lawsuit brought on behalf of 414,000 Explorer owners in California along with similar lawsuits in Illinois, Texas and Connecticut. Some consumer advocates questioned the benefits of a settlement that would require consumers to buy another Ford and would ultimately put money back in the company’s pockets.

“Five hundred million dollars does sound like a lot of money, but Ford may have gotten a better deal than they deserved,” said Pedro Morillas of the California Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit that helped to pass the Car Buyer’s Bill of Rights three years ago. He said more needs to be done to ensure that auto manufacturers are not introducing unsafe vehicles to the public in the first place.

During a trial that began in June in Sacramento’s downtown courthouse, plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that Ford had misled car buyers by falsely claiming the Explorers built in the 1990s were safe, all-purpose family vehicles. “They were peddling it as a safe vehicle that you could run up and down the highway at 70 mph,” said lead plaintiffs’ attorney Tab Turner.

“But this vehicle does not perform as a safe and stable soccer mom kind of vehicle.” Ford knew the Explorer’s high, narrow build made it prone to rollover in emergency maneuvers at highway speeds, the lawyers claimed. When the dangerous defects came to light after a nationwide recall of the Explorers’ Firestone tires in August 2000, each Explorer lost about $1,000 in value, the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued.