Multiple states have reached a $19.2 million settlement with Ford Motor Company after an investigation into the company’s alleged false advertising of the payload capacity of model year 2011–2014 Super Duty pickup trucks, along with the real-world fuel economy of model year 2013–2014 C-Max hybrids.
The investigation revealed that Ford used a truck configuration it never intended to sell to claim a “best-in-class” payload. The hypothetical truck didn’t have a spare tire, a jack, a radio, or a center console. Ford used this strategy when calculating payload for advertising purposes, but not for calculating the actual payload capacity of the trucks that consumers bought, so if you have a Super Duty from that period, the payload sticker should be correct.
The settlement also found that Ford misrepresented the fuel economy figures for 2013 and 2014 C-Max hybrids, for which it had already dropped the estimated MPG down by 7 and sent out $550 checks to customers to help make up the difference in fuel costs.
Last year, Ford was forced to recall over 12,000 model year 2020 F-350 trucks after it was found that payload stickers were overstated by between 78 and 800lbs. The fix was just a new sticker, and there’s a pending class-action lawsuit over it.
