Ford to petition to avoid US recall of 2.5 million vehicles

Ford shares fell 1.5% on Friday to close at $11.53

Ford Motor will petition to avoid a US recall of about 2.5 million vehicles with Takata air-bag inflators that the Japanese auto supplier declared defective last week, US regulators and the automaker said.

Separately, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Nissan Motor agreed to recall 515,394 2007-2011 Versa cars after Takata declared 2.7 million vehicles to have potentially defective inflators.

Ford spokesman John Cangany said the automaker will file a petition requesting “to continue testing and analysing our inflators”. The NHTSA said the petition will seek an exemption from the recall because Ford believes the issue is inconsequential.

Ford said the issue