Three owners of the 2016 Shelby GT350 have sued Ford for what they claim are warranty violations and deceptive advertising after their cars allegedly overheated on the track.
This may seem like a far-fetched claim, but the law firm behind it is none other than Hagens Berman, which successfully won $1.6 billion from Toyota for its floor mats, sued General Motors for at least $350 million over defective ignition switches, and most recently sued Mercedes-Benz and Fiat Chrysler for allegedly violating emissions laws on diesel models. The Shelby lawsuit, filed earlier this month in a Florida federal court, says that the 2016 GT350 is “not fit for track use due to defective transmissions and rear differentials that cannot keep cool enough to function without external transmission and rear differential coolers.” The plaintiffs are a Miami surgeon and his wife, a medical investigator; a Los Angeles lawyer; and an owner in Texas. Hagens Berman estimates there are several thousand more GT350 owners who could potentially join the class-action lawsuit. At issue is the 2016 GT350 in base trim or equipped with the Technology package, both of which did not and could not be equipped with coolers for the engine oil, rear differential, and transmission as on the Track and R packages. The lawsuit?and what appear to be a handful, if not dozens of owners without factory coolers posting on Mustang forums and YouTube?alleges that these cars overheat quickly, sometimes in as little ...