My Ford GT had its drivers side Takata airbag replaced over a year after the recall
Over a year after receiving my Takata airbag recall notice I received a follow-up notice saying the parts were available. It took awhile to get my Ford GT to a local dealership, and I was nervous about letting the dealer service staff drive it. I still worry about people who aren’t familiar with the GT’s shift pattern, because many novice GT drivers confuse 1st and 3rd gear, and driving a Ford GT in 3rd gear at low speeds can quickly fry the clutch.
A 1996 Ford Mustang SVT Cobra convertible also showed up at the dealership
After arriving at the dealership I had to wait about 20 minutes for someone to take my Ford GT away. While waiting a 1996 Ford Mustang SVT Cobra convertible drove up, and a 50-60 year-old woman got out. I don’t know why the car was there, but the woman was dressed in business clothes and looked like she was on her way to work (she took the dealership’s shuttle after checking her car in).
This Cobra looked like a daily driver, only about 2,500 were produced, and all of these cars used a 5-speed manual shift transmission. Seeing an SVT Cobra being used as a daily driver, 20 years after it was first sold, was an unexpected surprise. I never owned one, but I always really liked the SVT Cobras from that era.
It only took the dealership about 90 minutes to replace the driver’s side Takata Airbag in my Ford GT, and everything about the car looked and felt fine after getting it back. I was glad to have this issue handled…but when I got another recall notice for the passenger side Takata Airbag a few weeks later I wasn’t particularly surprised.