DEARBORN, Mich., Nov. 27 – Executives at the Ford Motor Company have insisted they are willing to bet the company’s future on a turnaround plan put in place earlier this year.

On Monday, they essentially did just that, mortgaging nearly all of Ford’s domestic assets – its plants, office buildings, patents and trademarks – along with stakes in Ford Credit and Volvo, to raise $18 billion.

Ford will use the money, which includes cash and an expanded line of credit, to cover several years of restructuring costs. Under a plan called the Way Forward, Ford expects to eliminate more than 40,000 jobs and close more than a dozen plants.

While other auto companies – including General Motors, earlier this year – have put up manufacturing equipment and other types of collateral over the years to secure loans, Ford has never done so in its 103-year history.

For decades, its credit was so good that it could easily borrow without pledging assets. But it is now taking out the corporate equivalent of a home equity loan and in doing so, signals that it expects even more stormy times before its restructuring is complete.

Analysts said the step, which Ford executives signaled early this fall, could put the company’s independence at risk. If management fails to make the ailing company profitable, Ford may be left with little choice but to find a buyer or merger partner or file for bankruptcy protection.

“It’s a historic moment for the company,” said Sean Egan of the Egan-Jones Ratings Company in Wynnewood, Pa. “It underscores the gap between the domestic manufacturers and Toyota, who’s sitting with over $80 billion of cash on its balance sheet and a stellar credit rating.”

Yet, the structure of the debt, which it arranged with J. P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup and the Goldman Sachs Group, signaled that Ford is not planning to sell a stake in Ford Credit, as had been speculated earlier this year, and that it planned to keep Volvo, among the most successful of its foreign brands.

Others brands, however, are up for sale, including Aston Martin, the maker of high-powered British sports cars. Ford is also expected to seek deals to sell Jaguar and Land Rover.

The amount Ford is borrowing exceeds the total market value of all its outstanding stock by $2.6 billion. The company said it expected to complete the financing by the end of the year, giving it a total of $38 billion in liquidity to work with.

Ford, in a statement, said it needed the loans “to address near- and medium-term negative operating-related cash flow, to fund its restructuring, and to provide added liquidity to protect against a recession or other unanticipated events.”

Company shares fell 36 cents, or 4.2 percent, to close at $8.16.

“This refinancing tells us that they see very tough times ahead,” said John Casesa, an automotive analyst with Casesa Strategic Advisers in New York. “Either they’re incredibly conservative, or they’re preparing for an extremely dark outlook.”

Although Ford said the loans would help it weather a recession, analysts say the company should be more concerned with fending off competitors than surviving a drop-off in sales.

Some forecasts, citing a slump in the housing market and lower consumer confidence levels, call for 2007 sales to fall by as many as 400,000 vehicles from this year, when automakers are expected to sell roughly 16.6 million vehicles in the United States.

Others are not so pessimistic. While 2007 may begin slowly, G.M. contends demand for new vehicles will pick up.

“Our forecast says it should be very similar to this year, and we’re hoping it will be stronger,” G.M.’s president for North America, Troy Clarke, said last week. “It kind of feels a little soft right now.”

Ron Pinelli, president of the Autodata Corporation, an industry statistics firm in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., said he expected sales to stay fairly steady through 2007, although he acknowledged that they were more likely to decline than to rise.

“I don’t think it’s doom and gloom for auto sales, but it might be a little bit tougher,” Mr. Pinelli said.

Two major ratings agencies, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, lowered their ratings of Ford’s unsecured debt on Monday, saying the asset pledges would make it more difficult for unsecured lenders to get their money back if the company defaults. Still, Moody’s analysts saw logic in the plan from the company’s perspective.

“It was important for Ford to structure this type of financing plan in order to ensure that it had adequate liquidity as it enters a highly challenging period,” Moody’s automotive analyst, Bruce Clark, said. “The company still faces daunting competitive and market challenges, but this plan would give it some breathing room over the next two years.”

An industrywide downturn would increase the pressure on Ford, which is in the midst of its third turnaround in five years. Monday was the deadline for hourly workers in Ford’s American operations to decide whether to accept retirement and buyout packages worth as much as $140,000 each.

Ford offered the deals to all 75,000 of its union workers but has not predicted how many would accept.

Nearly 35,000 workers at G.M., which had about 113,000 at the beginning of the year, accepted similar deals, costing that company about $3.8 billion. Ford’s program is expected to cost somewhat less than that amount because its work force is smaller and, on average, younger and thus farther from retirement age.

Ford, which lost about $7 billion in the first nine months, now says it does not expect to earn a profit in North America until 2009 at the earliest.

The company said last month that it might arrange secured financing for its turnaround because its credit rating, now well below investment grade, makes other methods for borrowing money too expensive and too limiting.

Of the $18 billion Ford is borrowing, $15 billion will be secured and $3 billion unsecured.

Ford’s chief financial officer, Don R. Leclair, recently called management’s willingness to leverage the company’s assets “a measure of the confidence we have” in the turnaround plan.

Shelly Lombard, senior high-yield analyst with Gimme Credit, a corporate-bond research service in New York, said the financing plan showed that Ford’s “problems are more serious and may take longer to fix than it initially anticipated.”

“It’s a better alternative,” she said, “than running out of cash and filing bankruptcy.”

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DEARBORN, Mich., Nov. 9 – For the second time this year, a Detroit automaker will be late filing an earnings report with the Securities and Exchange Commission because of accounting errors.

The Ford Motor Company said Thursday that it needed several more days to finish restating previous years’ earnings, the first time in recent memory that the automaker has sought an extension for a quarterly filing. Ford said on Oct. 23, when it reported a preliminary third-quarter loss of $5.8 billion, that it would have to restate its earnings since 2001 because of incorrect accounting of derivatives linked to interest rates by its finance arm, Ford Motor Credit Company.

Ford also said it would eliminate one of two shifts at a factory 10 miles from its headquarters that builds sport utility vehicles, and the Dana Corporation, an auto parts supplier, announced that it planned to close eight plants in North America.

Ford said it would need a few more days before it filed its third-quarter earnings report, which it expected to file by Tuesday.

“I think it makes sense, considering what we’re looking at in terms of restating, that we might need a couple more days,” said a Ford spokeswoman, Becky Sanch.

The delay comes eight months after General Motors delayed filing its 2005 annual report, in which it revised its loss to $10.6 billion, from $8.6 billion. G.M. also restated earnings for the first and second quarters of this year, and earlier this week it filed a report showing a third-quarter loss of $24 million less than it had previously reported.

Both G.M. and Ford have been grappling with slow sales, particularly of their most profitable vehicles – trucks and sport utility vehicles – and drastically cutting jobs and expenses in attempts to regain profitability. Nearly one-third of G.M.’s 113,000 unionized workers accepted buyout offers this summer, and Ford’s 75,000 hourly employees have several more weeks to decide whether they want to take a similar offer.

Ford said it would eliminate one of two shifts at its Michigan Truck Plant, which builds two newly redesigned S.U.V.’s, the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator. The move is expected to eliminate at least one-quarter of the 2,800 jobs at what was the world’s most profitable auto plant in the 1990′s, when the popularity of S.U.V.’s was at its peak.

Ford said it was cutting production by 21 percent in the fourth quarter, to its lowest level in 25 years. G.M. and the Chrysler Group, a division of the German-American automaker DaimlerChrysler, have also reduced output because of declining market share.

Those cuts have added to the misery being felt by parts suppliers like Dana, which said that it not only planned to close eight North American plants but would also try to renegotiate its labor contracts and seek to eliminate retiree health care costs. It also said it would reduce operations at three other plants.

Dana, based in Toledo, Ohio, filed for bankruptcy protection in March. The company, which makes brakes, axles and other components, said it intended to reduce annual expenses by as much as $540 million.

“We expect to continue to move manufacturing capacity from the U.S. to lower-cost countries, such as Mexico, while maintaining and improving the productivity of our final assembly operations in the U.S.,” Dana said in a regulatory filing. Dana currently has 46,000 employees at 116 factories worldwide, including 66 in North America.

Its third-quarter sales were down $110 million, or 5 percent, from a year ago, although previous cost-cutting moves helped the company shrink its net loss to $356 million, from $1.27 billion last year.

Dana did not say how many jobs would be affected or which plants would be closed, which are in addition to eight plants that have already been shut down or told they would close this year. The company’s chief executive, Michael J. Burns, told employees in a letter yesterday that he would make a detailed announcement within the next month.

Dana is one of several large suppliers operating under bankruptcy protection, which also include the Delphi Corporation and Tower Automotive. The automakers’ recent production cuts have made reorganizing and emerging from bankruptcy more difficult.

“Dana does have some new business coming on with Ford that’s going to help them stabilize the production flow through 2007,” said James Gillette, director of supplier analysis at CSM Worldwide in Northville, Mich. “The last four or five months were, and the next 12 months are going to be, very difficult.”

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DETROIT, Oct. 5 — Timing is everything, and Carlos Ghosn, who heads the automakers Nissan and Renault, may have missed his chance to fashion a global alliance.

Mr. Ghosn has made it clear he wants a North American partner. But after negotiations with General Motors fell apart Wednesday, the only other logical candidate to join an alliance with Mr. Ghosn, the Ford Motor Company, is no longer eager to bring him aboard.

Ford’s chairman, William Clay Ford Jr., tried to hire Mr. Ghosn as chief executive last year and called him during the summer to get next in line if things did not work out with G.M.

Since then, Mr. Ford has named a new chief executive, Alan R. Mulally, and, a person with knowledge of Ford’s plans said, the company has lost interest in pursuing an alliance.

Ford, which is expected to lose as much as $9 billion this year, believes it can resolve its financial crisis without any outside help, this person said.

Experts said the hiring of Mr. Mulally, who is credited with turning around Boeing’s business in commercial jets, is a clear sign that Ford does not want to pursue a partnership with Mr. Ghosn and his companies.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to have them talking, but that would be about it for the time being,” said Gerald C. Meyers, who was chief executive of American Motors before it was bought by the Chrysler Corporation. Chrysler now is part of DaimlerChrysler, which is based in Germany and is, therefore, not seen as a possibility to join an alliance.

“It’s pretty clear to me that they decided to go after their crisis with a crisis manager named Mulally,” Mr. Meyers said. “They’ve pushed their chips all over on that number, and I think they’re going to want to see that through.”

Ford has repeatedly declined to comment on what it considers speculation about its plans, although its chief financial officer, Don R. Leclair, hinted during the Paris Motor Show last week that the company had soured on the idea of an alliance.

“We’ve thought about a lot of things,” Mr. Leclair told Bloomberg News. “We’ve concluded for now that what we want to focus on is fixing our business.”

Mr. Ghosn has been more forthcoming about his intentions, telling reporters in Paris that he would continue to seek a partner in North America if the G.M. discussions were called off.

“The expansion of the alliance to a North American partner makes sense,” Mr. Ghosn said.

A Nissan spokeswoman repeated those comments on Wednesday, after G.M. confirmed that its board voted against continuing the talks.

G.M.’s chief executive, Rick Wagoner, said his company had concluded that it would benefit from a partnership much less than Nissan and Renault and had demanded compensation for the disparity. Mr. Ghosn balked, and the executives agreed to part ways in a phone call on Wednesday morning.

G.M. appeared to resist an alliance from the outset of the discussions, which began in July at the urging of Kirk Kerkorian, a large G.M. shareholder. While Mr. Ghosn’s team spent more than two months engaged in what turned out to be fruitless talks with G.M., Ford decided to move on without Mr. Ghosn.

Mr. Mulally accepted an offer to join Ford last month and began his new job on Sunday.

At this point, exploring an alliance with Mr. Ghosn could be demoralizing to Ford’s employees, Mr. Meyers said.

Mr. Ghosn’s success in revitalizing Nissan made him somewhat of a celebrity in the auto industry, and it is widely expected that he would ultimately take control of whatever company joined him in an alliance.

“It would be a sign of uncertainty and, in a way, of a lack of confidence in the guy that they just hired,” Mr. Meyers said.

Jon Rogers, an automotive analyst with Citigroup in New York, does not expect Ford to talk with Nissan and Renault anytime soon but said, “It would surprise me if it wasn’t discussed longer term.”

“The new C.E.O. just needs to get his feet wet and begin executing on his own plan,” Mr. Rogers said. “He’s been there what, four days?”

If talks between Ford and Nissan-Renault do ever happen, analysts say they will find more common ground than G.M. and Nissan-Renault did.

“Ford is really a much more natural partner” for Nissan-Renault, said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research.

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DEARBORN, Mich., Sept. 14 ? The Ford Motor Company agreed Thursday to offer buyouts and other incentives worth as much as $140,000 each to its 75,000 hourly workers in the United States to persuade them to leave their jobs.

The deal with the United Automobile Workers comes after a similar offer at General Motors earlier this year that was accepted by nearly a third of its union workers. It is also the latest sign that Detroit has decided it needs to shrink to survive.

Together, the agreements mean that nearly 200,000 hourly employees in the United States ? or three-quarters of those working on the assembly lines of Detroit?s three car companies ? have been offered deals to give up their jobs this year. By contrast, nearly 1 million workers were employed by Detroit automakers at their peak in 1978.

The buyout offer has increased the expectation that Ford will announce more plant closings Friday, when it said it would disclose details of the next phase of its sweeping plan to overhaul the company, called the Way Forward.

Any new plant closings would be in addition to earlier plans to shut 14 plants by 2012, a move that will eliminate 30,000 jobs.

Ford may speed up that timetable, and it also is expected to announce further cuts in white-collar and blue-collar jobs, spending cuts and changes in its lineup of car and truck models. In all, Ford has about 110,000 employees in the United States.

Both Ford and G.M. have been hurt by the effect of high gasoline prices that have caused sales of big sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks to slump. These vehicles provide the bulk of their profits.

The two car companies also face stiff competition from Asian automakers, whose reputation for building fuel-efficient small cars is paying off in the face of gas prices that topped $3 a gallon this summer. Companies like Toyota, Honda and Hyundai of Korea have set sales records in the United States as the market share of the three Detroit companies has hit record lows. They also have new plants under construction in the United States, and may build more.

Already, those United States plants operated by foreign automakers employ more than 100,000 workers.

“This more or less convinces auto workers that it?s not just the company, but it?s the domestic car industry,” said Gary N. Chaison, a professor of labor relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. “I don?t think that there?s any autoworker right now that really sees a good future in the auto industry anymore.”

Some high-ranking auto executives are drawing the same conclusion. Even before the revised blueprint for a turnaround was announced, one of its architects said she was leaving the automaker. Anne Stevens, chief operating officer of Ford?s division for the Americas and the highest-ranking woman ever at Ford, said she would retire.

She is the latest in a long line of senior managers who have left Ford over the last several years, as its financial crisis deepened.

Ms. Stevens, 57, has made no secret of her desire to run a company of her own. She apparently lost her chance for further advancement at Ford when the automaker named Alan R. Mulally as its chief executive last week.

Mr. Mulally, a former Boeing executive, is taking on duties performed for the last five years by Ford?s chairman, William Clay Ford Jr., the great-grandson of the company?s founder, Henry Ford. Mr. Ford is keeping the chairman?s title.

Mr. Mulally officially begins his job Oct. 1. He has played no role in devising the cuts or the buyout program, although he has been briefed on the plans and it will be his task to put them into effect.

Ford?s buyout program is similar to, and in some ways more attractive than, the G.M. plan. (Chrysler is not offering buyouts to its workers.)

Like G.M., Ford offered $35,000 to workers who were already eligible to retire. They would be allowed to keep their health care and pension benefits.

Ford workers with at least one year on the job can receive $100,000 to leave. They would receive health care coverage for six months, then would have to purchase medical coverage. They would receive pension benefits once they reached retirement age.

The highest amount is available to workers with 30 years of experience, or those who have reached age 55 with at least 10 years? experience. They would receive $140,000 to leave immediately, and would keep their pensions, but would have to forfeit their retirement health care coverage.

Ford also was offering packages of education benefits to workers and their families ranging up to $100,000. In all, workers can choose from eight different options.

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DEARBORN, Mich., Sept. 5 ? William Clay Ford Jr., great-grandson of the founder of the Ford Motor Company, brought in an outsider Tuesday to help run the company, in a tacit acknowledgment that he needs a new approach in his efforts to turn around the struggling automaker.

Mr. Ford took the highly unusual step, for Detroit, of turning to an executive with no experience in the auto industry. He gave up the titles of chief executive and president to Alan R. Mulally, a top executive of Boeing; Mr. Ford remains chairman.

Mr. Ford, 49, said he planned to remain the public face of the company ? he has been the star in Ford?s ads for years ? but give Mr. Mulally responsibility for solving Ford?s many problems, including falling sales, slumping profits and the loss of market share to its Asian rivals.

Although his family?s name is on the building, Mr. Ford?s prominent role at the company has been something of an anomaly in recent decades. He took over as chief executive in 2001, after a 22-year stretch in which the company was run by non-family members after his uncle, Henry Ford II, stepped down.

Mr. Ford has stressed his family heritage in many conversations, and has been visibly distressed about its troubles. The Ford family?s holdings have lost more than half their value this decade as the company shares have slumped.

Since becoming chairman in 1998, Mr. Ford has steadily increased his grip on the company, adding titles. But in July, he told the company?s board that he wanted to bring in an outside chief, he said in an interview.

Mr. Ford said of Mr. Mulally: ?Our team needs a steady hand from somebody who?s been through turnarounds and knows what it takes and can say, ?You?re on the right path, stick with it, it?s going to work,? or ?This isn?t the way to go, let?s refocus and go somewhere else.? ?

Ford has already begun closing 14 plants and cutting 30,000 jobs under a turnaround plan called the Way Forward. Even so, Ford executives are preparing an expanded blueprint of the restructuring program, set to be unveiled later this month, which may call for more job cuts, plant closings and reductions in spending.

Mr. Mulally?s hiring ?is another admission that the challenges the company faces are much tougher than initially envisioned,? said Craig Hutson, a senior investment grade analyst at Gimme Credit, an independent research service.

Although auto companies frequently hire executives from each other, the complexity of the industry has made it resistant to outsiders, especially at the most senior level. An exception came last year, when the Fiat of Italy hired Sergio Marchionne, a lawyer, as chief executive.

Ford?s move comes as General Motors has been under pressure from its biggest shareholder, Kirk Kerkorian, to move faster on its restructuring.

Mr. Kerkorian has pointed to Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive at both Nissan and Renault, as an example of the kind of manager G.M. needs. Mr. Ghosn built his reputation on his swift turnaround at Nissan, where he upended many longstanding practices. G.M.?s board has steadfastly supported its chief, Rick Wagoner.

Mr. Mulally?s hiring fits with Mr. Ford?s vow that Ford will dispense with tradition to move faster.

Indeed, Ford has no time to waste: In July, Toyota passed Ford for the first time to rank as the nation?s second-biggest auto company, behind G.M., although Ford regained that position last month.

Mr. Ford, frustrated with the slow pace of change at his company, took on the additional responsibilities, though not the title, of chief operating officer in July.

That same month, he said in an interview, he began a search of candidates inside and outside the industry that led him to Mr. Mulally.

The matchmaker for Mr. Ford and Mr. Mulally was Richard Gephardt, the former House majority leader and now an adviser to Mr. Ford. His former district near St. Louis was the site of a truck plant that Ford recently closed, while Mr. Gephardt helped Boeing reach the 2005 settlement that ended the strike by 18,000 members of the machinists? union.

Mr. Mulally, 61, said he was eager to try a new industry after 37 years at Boeing. ?I can?t wait to become a car guy,? he said.

He said he was drawn by the opportunity to work with Mr. Ford, the heritage of the auto company and the opportunity to help a struggling American icon. Mr. Gephardt, in fact, used that argument to help talk Mr. Mulally into considering the job, Mr. Ford said. ?He told him, you have to do this for America,? Mr. Ford said.

For his part, Mr. Ford said his approach during Mr. Mulally?s tenure as chief executive would be ?markedly different? from the days when Jacques A. Nasser held that position, 1999 to 2001. The two men were said to have clashed over Mr. Nasser?s efforts to invigorate Ford?s corporate culture, like changing the criteria for employee job evaluations.

Mr. Ford said Tuesday that he called Ron Gettelfinger, the president of the United Automobile Workers union, to tell him he had hired Mr. Mulally, only to learn Mr. Gettelfinger already knew him. Mr. Mulally said he planned to call Mr. Gettelfinger on Wednesday.

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DETROIT, Aug. 29 ? Local union leaders at the Ford Motor Company received an update on the struggling company?s condition Tuesday, but said they were not told about any specific steps the company planned to take.

The United Automobile Workers president, Ron Gettelfinger, and Bob King, the union?s lead negotiator with Ford, met with members of the union?s Ford Council for about four hours. The group is made up of local union presidents and bargainers.

In a statement, Mr. King said the officials discussed ?the ideas and input of U.A.W.-Ford workers about the current situation at Ford.?

Neither Mr. King nor Mr. Gettelfinger spoke to reporters afterward. But several union officials who attended the meeting said they were not given details about buyouts or other actions Ford may take.

Ford, which has lost roughly $1.5 billion this year, is planning to expand a reorganization program called the Way Forward.

The original blueprint, introduced in January, called for Ford to close 14 plants and eliminate 30,000 jobs through 2012.

Ford is considering a range of actions, like speeding up the plant closings, shutting more factories and expanding buyout offers, in an effort to persuade workers to leave their jobs. It is expected to announce those steps next month.

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JUST two inches long, the Texas Instruments Model 9F924 speed control deactivation switch does not look like a menacing device.

But a sporadic malfunction in the switch that sparked engine fires stumped engineers at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for two years.

The $20 switch, which shuts off the cruise control when a driver taps the brakes, became the subject of one of the most exhaustive and complex investigations in the agency?s history. It created an expensive and embarrassing problem for the Ford Motor Company, which initially disputed suggestions that the switches were starting fires.

When the repairs are made to the last of 6.7 million potentially defective switches, the Ford recall may be the second largest in United States history. ?I?ve been through hundreds of investigations, and the complexities here were enormous,? said Richard Boyd, chief of the medium- and heavy-duty vehicle division in the safety administration?s office of defects investigation. ?Going in we had no idea. Was the switch causing the problem or was the vehicle??

The answer, spelled out in a government report issued this month, turns out to be both.

After an investigation that involved collecting damaged cruise control switches from across the country, installing them in Ford vehicles and waiting for them to cause fires, the agency determined that a phenomenon never seen before was to blame.

?Unbeknown to anybody,? Mr. Boyd said, ?you can actually create a small vacuum when you let off the brakes.?

The force of that vacuum, investigators determined, was weakening a seal in the switches installed in millions of Ford pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles. With the plastic seal broken down, brake fluid was able to leak onto the electrical side of the switch and cause corrosion. Over time, that corrosion can build up, causing the switch to overheat and ignite an electrical fire.

Government investigators began hearing complaints about the switches catching fire in 1999. That year, Ford recalled 279,000 cars from the 1992-93 model years: the Crown Victoria, Lincoln Town Car and Mercury Grand Marquis.

Then, the problem was thought to be a manufacturing defect, but the recent investigation suggests that the vacuum-weakened seal was the culprit.

The number of complaints declined, and the agency considered the issue resolved. In 2002, there were reports of more Crown Victoria fires. But after monitoring the situation for two years, the agency decided the number was too low to warrant a recall.

Around the time the agency decided that a second Crown Victoria recall was not necessary, reports of fires in F-150 pickups began to trickle in. By June 2004, the agency had begun an inquiry into the truck fires.

At first, investigators believed the switches were overheating because of a problem that originated in manufacturing the switch.

The switch was in 16.5 million vehicles when the investigation began, but it appeared to overheat only in the 12.5 million that were wired so that the switch received power continuously, even when the ignition was off.

Perplexing investigators further was the fact that the switch was malfunctioning in some models but not in others. Explorers, for example, had a relatively low fire rate; fires were more common in Expeditions.

The simplest solution would have been to tell Ford to recall all 12.5 million vehicles with switches that always had power. But the agency did not yet understand the cause of the problem, and it cannot order a recall without making a solid case.

?The burden of proof in a defect investigation is on the government,? Mr. Boyd said. ?So at the end of the day, if we went to Ford and said we want you to recall 12 million vehicles, Ford would say, ?Oh, really?? ?

Ford?s response to the fires ? first refusing to acknowledge that the switches posed a fire hazard, then conducting four recalls over seven years ? angered fire victims and consumer advocates. It does not hurt their cases that Ford was accused of dragging its feet in other high-profile recalls.

?It?s a cultural issue within Ford Motor Company,? said Rob Ammons, a Houston lawyer who is suing Ford on behalf of an Iowa man, Earl Mohlis, whose wife, Dolly, died after their home caught fire. The lawsuit claims the man?s 1996 Ford F-150 pickup caught fire in the garage. The blaze spread to the house, killing Mrs. Mohlis. ?It?s the same exact pattern,? Mr. Ammons said. ?You saw it with the Pinto. You saw it with the ignition fires a decade ago. You saw it with Firestone. And you see it here.?

In the handful of wrongful-death suits it faces, Ford denies that the switches caused the fires. With all the possible sources of a house fire, it is impossible to say the switch was the sole cause, Ford says.

The company stopped using the switch in its vehicles in 2002.

Kristen Kinley, a Ford spokeswoman, said there was no proof that the fires started in the vehicles. ?Based on the evidence that we found, it does not indicate that the fires originated at the truck.?

Ford did not acknowledge that the switches were causing fires until last September, when it recalled 4.5 million vehicles from the 1994-2002 model years, including Ford Broncos and Expeditions and Lincoln Navigators. But Ford and the government still did not know why the fires were starting, despite exhaustive efforts to find the cause.

In a field in suburban Atlanta, with firefighters standing by, the traffic safety agency put faulty switches in four Ford vehicles and waited until they caught fire. Some of the defective switches were obtained by Bruce York, the chief investigator on the case, who went to dealerships and junkyards in the Washington area in search of used switches and samples of brake fluid.

Government engineers then studied the burn patterns. The agency eventually sent defective switches to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal agency, which determined that the switches were failing because the seal separating the electric side from the side containing brake fluid was wearing down.

Why that was happening was still unclear, however. One possibility was a vacuum effect in the brake line, created when a driver releases the brake, that would cause the seal to invert and wear down over time. Engineers had never seen that happen in cars.

This summer, they began to focus their investigation on what role that vacuum might play. So they looked at data on brake-line vacuum that had been collected in an unrelated investigation. They found that with the right amount of vacuum the seal would invert, and they determined that the seal was especially vulnerable in vehicles with more vacuum in their brake lines.

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DEARBORN, Mich., Aug. 18 ? The Ford Motor Company said today that it would cut vehicle production by 21 percent in the fourth quarter, its steepest cut in more than two decades, because sales of its most important products, light trucks, are faltering.

Ford said it was abandoning its goal, reiterated as recently as April, of selling 900,000 pickup trucks a year in the United States. That could mean that the reign of Ford?s F-series pickup truck as the best-selling vehicle in America could be coming to an end after nearly a quarter-century.

The company said the production cuts were necessary because high gasoline prices were eroding sales of light trucks and sport-utility vehicles, which account for two-thirds of Ford?s sales, and that it could no longer hope for fuel prices to fall again.

Ford made the announcement in an e-mail message to employees from its chief executive, William Clay Ford Jr.

?We know this decision will have a dramatic impact on our employees, as well as our suppliers,? Mr. Ford wrote in the message. ?This is, however, the right call for our customers, our dealers and our long-term future.?

Ford Motor executives are trying to develop an expanded version of the North American turnaround plan that the company announced in January. The plan, called the Way Forward, called for the company to close 14 plants and eliminate 30,000 jobs by 2012 to streamline its operations and cut costs.

Ford is now looking at deeper cuts, on a swifter timetable than the original plan. It is expected to announce the additional steps in September.

General Motors is undergoing a similar effort to trim costs and turn around its North American vehicle business; it has said it will close all or part of a dozen factories and eliminate tens of thousands of jobs.

Ford?s announcement today that it would cut fourth-quarter production by 168,000 vehicles will have an immediate impact on its bottom line. Auto companies count vehicles as sold when they are shipped from the factory to the dealer, not when they are ultimately purchased by the consumer. Under this system, cutting production directly reduces the manufacturer?s potential for revenue and profits.Ford also said it is cutting back its production in the current quarter by another 20,000 vehicles, beyond the cutback of 40,000 vehicles that it announced in July. All told, the company now expects to build slightly more than 3 million vehicles this year. The F-series pickup alone accounts for about 30 percent of that total.

Following the announcement, two of the major credit-rating agencies, Moody;s Investors Service and Standard & Poor?s, said they were considering downgrading Ford, and a third, Fitch Ratings, lowered its rating of Ford by one level. All three agencies rate Ford?s debt securities well below investment grade.

Shares of Ford stock traded at about $7.98 at midday, down 19 cents from Thursday?s close.

Ford has not cut production this deeply since it underwent a financial crisis in the early 1980?s that nearly forced it to seek a federal bailout like the one Chrysler received.

?This action, difficult as it is, reflects an assessment of the marketplace that is conservative, and more aligned with the shift in customer demand,? Mr. Ford wrote in the e-mail to employees.

He went on, ?As you know, an unprecedented spike in gasoline prices during the second quarter impacted our product lineup more than that of our competitors, because of the long-standing success of our trucks and S.U.V.?s.?

Like Chrysler and General Motors, Ford makes relatively little money on the cars it sells and depends heavily on pickups and S.U.V.?s for profits. By contrast, the major Japanese automakers still produce more cars than light trucks and make substantial profits on both, though they too have introduced more pickup and S.U.V. models in recent years.

Last month, Toyota surpassed Ford for the first time to become the No. 2 automaker in the American market, ranked by unit sales. (General Motors is No. 1.) Soon after that, Ford announced that it lost $254 million in the second quarter, on top of a $1.2 billion loss it reported for the first quarter.

Ford Motor also said today that it would reduce its spending on sales incentives like cash rebates and below-market financing. American automakers make much heavier use of such incentives than Honda or Toyota do, and tend to see sharper fall-offs in sales when they have been curtailed or withdrawn.

Under the revised production schedule, Ford Motor said it would temporarily shut down assembly lines in Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Kentucky and Ontario at various times between now and the end of the year.

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TESTED: 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid

WHAT IS IT? Compact sport utility wagon with a hybrid gas-electric powertrain.

HOW MUCH? Base price $26,215. As tested, $32,120 with $1,605 all-wheel drive, $1,995 navigation and upgraded sound system, $180 AC power outlet, $585 power sunroof, $695 appearance package, $595 safety package, $595 leather group.

WHAT DRIVES IT? A 2.3-liter 4-cylinder gasoline engine plus a 70-kilowatt electric motor; continuously variable transmission.

HOW THIRSTY? Rated 36 m.p.g. in town, 31 on the highway (33/29 with all-wheel drive).

ALTERNATIVE: Toyota Highlander Hybrid.

ARGUABLY, one of the best things the Ford Escape Hybrid has going for it is the name recognition that comes from belonging to the popular Escape gang. That may also be its big drawback.

Since the car-based utility wagon made its debut as a 2001 model, it has been one of Ford?s few recent success stories. But as the design has aged, demand has softened. The hybrid arrived as a 2005 model in a dated body.

Further, while gasoline-powered Escapes start below $20,000, the all-wheel-drive hybrid version is some 40 percent more expensive ? $27,820 and up.

But here?s the kicker: the less expensive conventional Escape gets mileage comparable to the hybrid?s. With a manual transmission, a four-cylinder front-drive gasoline Escape is rated 29 m.p.g. on the highway, equal to the all-wheel drive hybrid. (The front-drive hybrid is rated 31 m.p.g.)

Ford had incorrectly predicted that its first hybrid would sell as easily as Toyota?s wildly popular Prius, and largely without advertising. By last winter, some dealers reported that Escape Hybrids sat on their lots so long that the batteries died.

In February, Ford changed its hands-off marketing approach and gave the hybrid a full-blown ad campaign, including coveted Super Bowl spots and a green spokesman, Kermit the Frog. Buyer incentives of $1,000 were offered on 2006 models. (For 2007, the incentives were dropped, but the base price was lowered by $1,000.)

In addition, Ford has sought to educate its dealers about tax breaks available for hybrid buyers. The Escape Hybrid qualifies for either a $1,950 (all-wheel drive) or $2,600 (front drive) federal tax credit and some state and local incentives as well.

The result, said Jim Cain, a Ford spokesman, was ?a doubling of sales in some markets.? The backlog of unsold models has disappeared and ?we are now selling as many as we make,? he said.

I tested a 2006 model, and to be honest, I wasn?t expecting much. In previous testing, I?d found the Toyota Highlander Hybrid and Lexus RX 400h disappointing, since my observed mileage proved to be much lower than the advertised claims. I expected little better from the Ford.

Nor was the Escape immediately endearing; even before I turned the key, odd noises emerged here and there as motors and circuits engaged and disengaged. Once I started driving, though, it began to impress.

The 133-horsepower gasoline engine combines with an electric motor that generates the equivalent of 93 horsepower; the resulting output is not quite as powerful as the conventional Escape?s optional 200-horse V-6, but it feels as though it is. From a stop, the hybrid can reach 60 m.p.h. in 9.6 seconds, compared with 8.9 seconds for the V-6.

The most pleasant and unexpected surprise was my mileage. I didn?t baby the Escape or try to coax high mileage from it, yet I had no trouble achieving ? even exceeding ? the E.P.A. estimates.

Another advantage is this: while premium fuel is recommended for the Toyota and Lexus, the Escape Hybrid does fine on regular unleaded. Ford says this is the first hybrid with alternative-fuel capability, having been approved to run on E85 ethanol.

Later this year, the 2008 Escape will make its debut on the auto show circuit with updated styling. Hybrid versions will also receive a welcome upgrade with second-generation motors and battery packs. These improvements should help the Escape Hybrid accelerate its transition from forgotten to famous.

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DETROIT, June 8 (AP) ? Fitch Ratings downgraded the long-term debt of Ford and its financing arm further into junk status on Thursday, citing a “sparse product pipeline” and a restructuring plan that it said would be slow to have an effect.

The announcement sent Ford’s stock to a 52-week low, down 18 cents, or 2.65 percent, to $6.61.

Fitch lowered Ford’s default rating to B+ from BB and its senior unsecured debt rating to BB? from BB.

It also assigned a recovery rating of RR3 to Ford’s senior unsecured debt, meaning it calculates that the automaker has a 50 percent to 70 percent chance of recovery if it files for bankruptcy protection.

Fitch lowered the Ford Motor Credit Company’s issuer default rating to B+ from BB and affirmed its senior unsecured debt at BB with a recovery rating of RR2, which indicates recovery prospects of 70 percent to 90 percent. The outlook on all the ratings is negative.

A Ford spokeswoman, Becky Sanch, said the company was committed to its turnaround plan.

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