Ford Motor Co. settled a lawsuit over the death of a New York Mets minor league baseball player in an Explorer accident after a jury ordered the company to pay his estate $131 million, Bloomberg reported.

A Jasper County, Miss., jury awarded the verdict today and the case was settled on confidential terms before punitive damages could be considered, said attorney Tab Turner, who represented the family of Brian Cole.

Cole, 27, was ejected from an Explorer in a March 2001 accident in Florida while he was going home from spring training with the Mets. His family claimed the Explorer’s seat belt was defective and failed to keep him in the vehicle during the rollover, Turner said.

“His belt was still buckled after the accident was over but he was thrown from the car,” Turner said today. “Physical evidence” showed that Cole had been wearing the belt, he said.

The jury also awarded $1.5 million to Cole’s cousin, Ryan, who was injured in the accident. The total verdict is the eighth-largest jury award in 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It’s the ninth biggest U.S. verdict against an auto company.

Brian Cole “was not wearing his safety belt,” said Marcey Evans, a Ford spokeswoman. “His passenger, who was properly belted, walked away from the accident,” she said.

Cole had been traveling at more than 80 miles an hour before drifting off the road and losing control of the Explorer, she said.

At the time of Cole’s death, he was an outfielder in the AA minor leagues, two steps from the majors, Turner said. “He had been player of the year in the Mets organization,” he said.

Ford Motor Co. will hold fourth-quarter North American production at the same level as the third-quarter of this year and slightly below the last quarter of 2009 because of the economy’s modest recovery and lackluster consumer spending, reported Automotive News.

“Elevated savings rates are dampening spending,” and buyers are replacing cars on an as-needed basis, said Emily Kolinksi Morris, Ford’s senior U.S. economist. She categorized the recovery as moderate “but not a collapse.”

Ford said it plans to produce 570,000 vehicles in the third and fourth quarters of 2010. During the last three months of 2009, Ford produced 574,000 vehicles.

“We are keeping production steady, and this is consistent with the sales pattern we have seen in the industry in the last six months,” said George Pipas, Ford’s U.S. sales analyst. “We see a steady, stable sales pattern.”

Ford’s August sales fell 11 percent to 157,327 vehicles compared to a year ago, when the company benefited from brisk sales during the government’s cash-for-clunkers program.

The latest sales numbers exclude Volvo, which was sold to China’s Geely.

Ford’s U.S. sales have increased 18 percent this year to 1.28 million units, reflecting strong demand for trucks, which are up 27 percent year-to-date, as well as newer models such as the Ford Taurus and Fiesta.

Among all industry brands that did well during last year’s clunker’s program, Pipas noted that Ford was the only brand in August “to have achieved a retail market share gain on top of last year’s performance.”

Ford’s August retail sales were 19 percent lower than a year earlier, but fleet sales were up 26 percent.

“The entire fleet increase was in the commercial fleet area,” where F-series truck and Econoline van sales were strong, said Pipas. “Sales to commercial fleets doubled from last August’s levels.”

Ford Motor Co. said it is recalling 575,000 Windstar minivans in the U.S. and Canada because rear axles may corrode and break, Bloomberg reported.

The voluntary recall affects 1998 to 2003 model-year Windstars in areas where road salt is used in cold weather, according to a notice today on the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website.

“After many years of vehicle service in these areas, corrosion can weaken the rear axle, making it susceptible to torsional stress,” Ford said in a report posted on NHTSA’s site.

Ford, based in Dearborn, Mich., has received about 950 complaints alleging cracking in the rear axle, including seven that resulted in accidents causing three injuries, Said Deep, a Ford spokesman, said in a telephone interview.

The company will repair the recalled vehicles free of charge by installing brackets to reinforce the rear axle, Ford said in the statement.

The U.S. auto-safety agency opened an investigation into the defect in May after receiving 234 complaints alleging rear-axle failures.

DETROIT – Ford Motor Co., moving to wind down its Mercury brand, extended the dealer cash program offered on all Mercury products through September, Automotive News reported.

The program, which allocates $1,500 per vehicle, was set to end Aug. 31.

“We are continuing to provide strong sales tools to our dealers so they are able to remain competitive in the marketplace,” Ford spokesman Steve Kinkade said. Some dealers feared Ford would reduce the per vehicle dealer cash amount to $1,000, but Kinkade says that amount has not been reduced.

Ford announced on June 2 it would shutter the Mercury brand by Dec. 31. It plans to sell all remaining Mercury inventory before the year ends.

Many dealers welcomed the extended dealer cash program as they try to sell their last remaining Mercury products.

“It’s good news. It’s helped us,” said Ed Witt, owner of Witt Lincoln Mercury in San Diego. He has a 30-day supply of Mercury vehicles.

“Business in general is still difficult,” Witt said. “But we have a big luxury market here and we feel confident with a lot of hard work and support from Ford we’ll do fine.”

At the end of July, Ford had about 8,200 Mercury vehicles in U.S. dealer stock, said Ken Czubay, Ford’s vice president of U.S. marketing, sales and service. That’s less than a 40-day supply.

At the end of June, Ford had 10,000 Mercury products in U.S. stock.

Ford plans to end production of Mercury vehicles in early October.

“The sell down is proceeding smoothly,” Czubay said during a July sales call. “By the end of the year there will be very few Mercurys in stock.”

DETROIT – Ford Motor Co. temporarily halted shipments of Fiestas from its Mexico factory in the past week due to a faulty part — compounding an inventory shortage for the new small car and further complicating a key vehicle introduction, reported Reuters.

Shipments of the Fiesta were halted because of a quality issue with a single part that Ford has identified and fixed, Ford President of the Americas Mark Fields said.

Fields said Ford has resumed shipping the Fiesta to U.S. dealers and does not believe that any of the vehicles with potential defects had been sold to consumers.

“In our normal approach, which is to make sure that we have really robust processes and normal quality operating procedure at the plant, we did find a part quality issue,” Fields told reporters. “We’ve addressed it.”

Fields declined to name the part at issue, but two people with direct knowledge of the stop-shipment order said that it was a seat lever.

A spokesman said Ford is checking several thousand Fiestas built over the past month before they will be released to dealers for sale to customers.

The car represents the first test of Ford’s global vehicle production strategy in its home market and the automaker’s push back into a segment of the U.S. market long dominated by Japanese automakers.

The unusual stop-shipment order is the latest difficulty for the long-anticipated Fiesta launch. Earlier in the summer, storms damaged railroad tracks north of the plant in Mexico where the Fiesta is built, delaying shipments.

Last month, Ford apologized to consumers still waiting to take delivery of Fiestas and offered them $50 gift cards, while acknowledging that shipments were weeks behind schedule.

The chairman of Ford Motor Co. vowed that the automaker will cut its heavy debt load and said a stock offering by rival General Motors Co. could divert demand for Ford shares, The Wall Street Journal reported.

William C. Ford Jr. told reporters that the company is going to continue to pay off its debt “as fast as we can.”

Ford has $27.3 billion in automotive debt. GM has only $8.1 billion after shedding much of its debt in a bankruptcy reorganization last year.

Ford said his company expects investment funds “will be rebalanced to GM” in the wake of an initial public offering by the automaker, which filed for an IPO on Wednesday. That could move money out of Ford shares, as funds may be subject to a limit on their auto-sector holdings, he said.

Ford said the Dearborn, Mich., company is hiring again, especially in the area of electronics and may expand its upscale Lincoln brand to markets around the world.

Ford has been “quietly adding some jobs,” he said, saying the “clouds are lifting now.” Since 2005, Ford has shuttered more than a dozen plants and cut more than 40,000 positions to bring its work force and production capacity in line with shrinking demand for new cars and trucks.

Ford said that internal discussions are under way at Ford over whether Lincoln, the company’s last remaining brand outside the main street Ford brand, should be sold outside North America for the first time.

Ford’s shedding of brands and increasing common parts across all of its vehicles has “liberated Lincoln,” Ford said.

Under Chief Executive Alan Mulally, Ford has sold off niche brands Land Rover, Jaguar, Volvo and Aston Martin to free up resources to rebuild the Ford division. Ford also decided to stop making Mercurys by year’s end.

Ford added that innovations in product development would help rein in investment costs for Lincoln, but it remains an open question whether the company can and should build a truly global premium brand.

Nonetheless, Ford indicated that Lincoln’s future was not in doubt, saying it is destined to be a “more robust luxury brand.”

Lincoln once generated billions of dollars in profit for Ford but has lost much of its identity as some customers have moved to more richly outfitted Ford vehicles. Lincoln sales this year grew 4.1 percent through July, below the industry average and well behind the Ford brand’s 27 percent growth.

Lincoln’s importance is magnified now that Ford has decided to kill off Mercury, the 71-year-old nameplate whose sales have dwindled this year. Since Lincoln and Mercury are usually sold by the same dealers, these franchisees could struggle if Lincoln doesn’t bounce back.

One problem with Lincoln is its aging audience and a base of customer who aren’t especially loyal to the brand.

Ford is promising seven new or significantly improved Lincolns in the next four years, including a small luxury car and new MKZ midsize sedan. But it’s unclear how deep the commitment to U.S.-dominated Lincoln runs at an increasingly global, one-brand Ford.

DETROIT – Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford said some investors may reduce their holdings in his company to buy shares in General Motors Co.’s initial public offering and spread their risk across the automobile industry, reported Bloomberg.

“Some money will be rebalanced into GM, but look: our company and GM ultimately are going to succeed or not based upon performance,” Ford, 53, told reporters today at an event in suburban Detroit. “It doesn’t make any difference to me where our shares are or their shares are on any given day.”

GM, 61 percent owned by the U.S. Treasury, this week filed documents for a share sale that would cut the government’s stake and mark the automaker’s return to public markets a year after filing for bankruptcy. The offering may be as large as $16 billion, people familiar with the plans have said.

Ford shares have gained 19 percent this year through Thursday.

Ford is talking to the UAW in advance of 2011 negotiations, the chairman said today. While the automaker is “largely competitive” with GM and Chrysler Group LLC on labor costs, there are some areas where the companies aren’t at parity, said Ford, the great-grandson of the company’s founder.

UAW members at Ford ratified contract changes in March 2009 that the automaker said would save $500 million annually, including giving up annual bonuses and cost-of-living increases and accepting reductions in layoff benefits. GM and Chrysler, before the bankruptcies of their predecessors, won a freeze on pay for entry-level workers and a no-strike accord until 2015.

“I’m confident that as we go through negotiations we’ll work it out,” Ford told the audience at the event. “Any negotiation is a big deal, but I feel very good about our relationship with the UAW.”

Ford avoided bankruptcy by borrowing $23 billion in late 2006, before credit markets froze. CEO Alan Mulally has said the borrowing left the company with obligations that now put it at a competitive disadvantage.

Ford’s earnings and cash flow have kept the company ahead of schedule repaying debt, the chairman said today.

The automaker earned $4.7 billion in the year’s first six months, the largest first-half profit since 1998. Sales of redesigned models such as the Taurus and Fusion sedans helped propel the automaker’s U.S. sales up 23 percent this year compared with an industrywide gain of 15 percent.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Ford Motor Co. won a new trial in a lawsuit over brain injuries suffered by a teenager in a Bronco II rollover accident that resulted in a $31 million jury award against the automaker, Bloomberg reported.

The South Carolina Supreme Court found a judge overseeing Jesse Branham III’s case allowed the teen’s lawyers to use inadmissible evidence to convince jurors Ford officials knew the sport-utility vehicle was defectively designed and had a propensity for rolling over.

The judge also shouldn’t have allowed Branham’s attorneys to offer evidence of Ford executives’ pay when seeking punitive damages against the automaker during the 2006 trial, the court said.

“The admission of this evidence was error and highly prejudicial,” the state’s highest court said in an Aug. 16 ruling.

Branham’s case was one of 12 verdicts against the automaker involving rollovers of the company’s vehicles stretching back to June 2004, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Juries ordered Ford to pay a total of $568 million in damages over the accidents. The teen’s verdict also was one of the largest jury awards in 2006 against an automaker, according to the data.

Branham was disappointed with the appellate court’s decision, said Ronnie Crosby, a Hampton, S.C.-based lawyer for the family.

“We believe there is ample evidence to demonstrate the Bronco II is defective and unreasonably dangerous and we’re eager to present that evidence to another jury,” Crosby said in a phone interview Thursday.

Marcey Evans, a spokeswoman for Ford, declined to comment.

Branham, who was 17 when the jury returned its 2006 verdict, was a rear-seat passenger in a 1987 Bronco II when it flipped over on a country road in southwestern South Carolina. Branham’s parents, who sued on their son’s behalf, said the Bronco II rolled over because the sport-utility vehicle is inherently unstable.

The Hampton state-court jury awarded $16 million in actual damages and $15 million in punitive damages. Ford appealed the verdict.

The accident occurred after the driver, Cheryl Jane Hale, turned to look at children in the back seat of the Bronco, according to the appellate court decision. The vehicle began drifting off the road and she steered hard to the left, causing the SUV to roll, the filing shows.

“No one was wearing a seatbelt,” Justice John W. Kittredge noted in the ruling.

Branham’s family alleged Ford knew the Bronco was defectively designed and had a tendency to roll over. The teen’s lawyers produced internal Ford documents showing a debate about the suspension system and called a former Ford executive to testify about rollover concerns, according to the court ruling.

The family’s attorneys also introduced evidence about rollover problems that postdated the Bronco’s 1986 manufacture date, Kittredge noted. The trial judge should have barred that evidence under state law, he added.

The trial judge also erred in failing to bar evidence of similar accidents from being presented to jurors, Kittredge said.

Ford Motor is planning to win back its investment grade credit rating that it lost in 2005, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

Ford, the only U.S. carmaker that did not receive a government bailout during the financial crisis, aims to get back the investment grade rating in 2012, or by the end of 2011, the sources told the paper.

An investment grade rating usually means a company can borrow money at lower interest rates.

In the second quarter, Ford retired $7 billion of debt, lowering annualized interest costs by more than $470 million. Ford ended the quarter with $27.3 billion in automotive debt.

Ford expects to be solidly profitable this year, but it borrowed more than $23 billion in late 2006 to fund its turnaround, leaving it with a far heavier debt load than the post-bankruptcy GM and Chrysler.

Ford avoided the bankruptcies that engulfed GM and Chrysler but supported its rivals in their requests for U.S. government funding that also helped to prevent a collapse of the auto parts supply base.

Ford could not immediately be reached for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

Ford Motor Co. is getting help from the U.S. and other governments around the world as it races to slash its debt and boost its credit rating—an ironic position for the only U.S. carmaker that didn’t receive a government bailout last year, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally and Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth are on a drive to get back the auto maker’s investment-grade credit rating, which it lost in 2005. Their goal, said a person familiar with the situation, is to get to investment grade in 2012 or possibly by the end of 2011, which may not be a stretch given the $7.3 billion profit Ford has made since the beginning of last year.

A higher credit rating typically lowers a company’s cost of borrowing money.

For more than a year, car buyers have flocked to Ford, with some saying they wanted to support the only Detroit car maker that didn’t receive a government rescue. Ford’s U.S. sales so far this year are up 22% over the same period last year, well outpacing General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC.

Ford increasingly has been able to pay back debt ahead of schedule in part by winning government loan guarantees that allow it to borrow funds more cheaply. It uses these government-backed loans to make investments in its operations, then uses its own cash to pay down its privately issued debt.

Ford officials say the company, like its competitors, looks for government assistance when appropriate. “If we can take advantage of attractive interest rates, we will,” Ford spokesman Mark Truby said.

Ford’s steep debt stems mainly from a decision in late 2006 to borrow $23.5 billion to fund its turnaround. While the move helped keep Ford out of bankruptcy, it left it with a debt burden for which it paid $318 in interest for each vehicle it produced in the second quarter.

Meanwhile, Ford’s two Detroit rivals have relatively little debt thanks to their U.S.-funded reorganizations.

As of June 30, Ford’s overall automotive debt totaled $25.8 billion, down from $32.6 billion at the end of the first quarter. Ford paid $951 million in interest on its debt in the year’s first half.