Ford, under pressure from NHTSA, expands door handle recall.

The Detroit News (5/2, Shepardson, 523K) reports that Ford Motor Co., under pressure from the NHTSA, said Friday it will expand an existing recall for door latch issues for 156,000 additional vehicles, including Ford Fiesta vehicles manufactured in 2011. Since 2014, Ford has issued five recalls covering more than 1.55 million vehicles for door latch glitches. The News says a discussion between NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind and Ford officials led to the expanded recall now totaling 390,000 vehicles. The story says Rosekind is meeting this week with Ford CEO Mark Fields and other top executives with Detroit’s Big Three automakers. “I want to have direct communication. If there are issues, I want to be able to call them or they can call me — that just doing this through headlines for example or reading a press release is not the way for us to talk about a recall issue or a defect,” Rosekind said.