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By AFP 
10h ago
Johannesburg – US automaker Ford paid cash damages to dozens of South African car owners after their Kuga SUVs caught fire due to a manufacturing failure, a consumer watchdog said on Thursday.
The National Consumer Commission, which mediated between the automaker and consumers, said that of 53 complaints filed, 47 accepted a payment of R50,000 each.
Three others rejected the offer and chose to go to court to seek further compensation, while three other claims were rejected because they did not “show that their loss was within the parameters of the settlement agreement,” the consumer commission said.
“Ford agreed to pay each consumer R50,000.00 as compensation if their vehicle was distributed during the period 2014 to 2017, and that vehicle was one of the … Ford Kuga vehicles that caught fire,” it said in a statement.
The company said the fires were caused by overheating due to poor coolant circulation that led to an oil leak.
The failure forced Ford to remove 4,500 cars from South African roads.
The vehicles were manufactured in Valencia, Spain, between December 2012 and February 2014.
A driver died after his Kuga caught fire, although Ford denies it was due to that manufacturing fault.
Separately, the auto giant was fined 35 million rand ($ 2.3 million) for the South African consumer watchdog fires last year.
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