INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Auto workers will vote on an agreement that could keep Ford Motor Co.’s Indianapolis steering systems plant open until 2010, two years longer than planned.

If accepted by members of UAW Local 1111, the new pact would streamline work rules and lower production costs enough to keep the plant open, Ford spokeswoman Della DiPietro said Wednesday.

Ford announced in January it could not find a buyer for the 1,900-employee factory on the city’s east side and scheduled its closing in 2008. The plant, which opened in 1957, now employs 1,000 full-time employees and 400 temporary workers.

DiPietro said Ford had no plans to continue production in the plant after 2010, when the company moves to a new type of electronic steering system it will buy from a new supplier.

“It’s not our decision. It’s the outside marketplace,” she said. “It is not cost effective to retool a plant that is frankly too old and too large, particularly when they have capacity elsewhere.”

The Indianapolis plant was one of several Ford took back in a bailout of Visteon Corp., a supplier Ford had spun off. Ford created Automotive Components Holdings in 2005 as a subsidiary to try to find new owners for the plants.

Visteon has announced plans to close two other Indiana factories — a 900-worker plant in Connersville and a 695-employee facility in Bedford.