2022 Ford Maverick Safety Canopy Side Curtain Airbags Are Defective, Class Action Says [UPDATE]

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Ford faces a proposed class action after reportedly admitting last fall that the “Safety Canopy” side curtain airbags in the 2022 Ford Maverick are defective—and that the problem “may increase the risk of injury in a crash.” 

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The 36-page complaint out of Michigan says that the Maverick Safety Canopy airbags, which are mounted to the roof-side rail sheet metal, behind the headliner, above each row of seats, are faulty in that the front row-side airbags allow for displacement of as much as roughly 112 millimeters, well in excess of federal requirements, in the event of a side impact crash or rollover. Any side curtain airbags installed in a vehicle must comply with federal safety standards for ejection mitigation that specify that side curtain airbags must prevent an “impactor,” which simulates a vehicle occupant, from traveling more than 100 millimeters (about four inches) beyond the inside surface of the car’s window, the case relays.

The purpose of this requirement, the suit says, is to control the size of any gaps that form between the ejection mitigation side curtain airbag and the window opening, which together decrease the potential for partial and complete ejection of a vehicle occupant during a crash. 

Per the suit, side curtain airbags, such as the Safety Canopy airbags, which inflate between the side window area and a vehicle occupant for further protection in a side crash or rollover, play a crucial role in not only protecting a vehicle occupant’s head from a side impact crash, but also preventing them from being ejected during a rollover. 

“Effectively, as [the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] put it, this means the Airbag Defect results in side curtain airbags that do not deploy properly,” the case summarizes.

According to the complaint, the Ford Maverick airbag defect increases the risk that front-seat passengers will be ejected from the vehicle in a crash. In fact, the situation is so dangerous, the lawsuit stresses, that Ford voluntarily recalled around 65,000 2022 Ford Maverick vehicles last year. 

Although Ford has claimed it will offer a fix for the airbag defect sometime this year, an exact timeline for the remedy, i.e., when replacement parts will become available, is undetermined, such that the automaker has urged owners and lessees to wear their seatbelt and “drive with a little extra caution,” the filing continues. 

“Ford claims that the side curtain airbags ‘are anticipated to be available by January 2023,’ but it is unclear whether this will come to fruition,” the lawsuit says, adding that since Ford has apparently been unable to identify the root cause of the defect, it is unclear whether replacing the side curtain airbags at issue would even fix the problem. 

In the meantime, the case relays, Ford has not provided consumers with rental cars, leaving them to either drive a dangerous vehicle “from which they can be more easily ejected or injured” or stop using their cars entirely. 

The lawsuit looks to cover anyone in the United States who bought, leased or owns a 2022 Ford Maverick or any other Ford vehicle equipped with the same “Safety Canopy” side curtain airbags. 

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