On Tuesday, October 13, Ford announced a recall affecting 4.5 million vehicles, the eighth and final recall the company has issued over the past ten years addressing defective cruise-control deactivation switches made by Texas Instruments that may present a fire hazard.

Wes Sherwood, a company spokesman quoted by Automotive News said, "We did this to reassure customers and make sure there will be no future actions connected to this. We've gone to extra lengths to include both vehicles with risks and those that don't show risk."

The recall, double the size of the previous largest such action in U.S. history, includes 1.1 million Windstar vans from the model years spanning 1995-2003 and 3.4 million vehicles that have the faulty switches but are not considered to be a fire risk.

Sherwood, who declined to estimate the cost to the automaker to repair the defects or whether Texas Instruments would be held financially responsible in some way said, "There's no link between people associated with the development of this part and where Ford is going today. We're in a completely different place."

Kim Morgan, a spokeswoman for Texas Instruments said, "The switch is only one component of Ford's cruise-control deactivation system, and is not the root cause of the fires. The company continues to have confidence in the safe design of the switch itself."