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Ford's Record Breaking Year Of Recalls

Roger Kirnos

Ford Motor Company has the highest number of safety recalls out of any auto manufacturer in 2025, and is on track to double the highest number of recalls by any automaker in any previous year.

As of November 2025, Ford has issued 137 automotive recalls, while the second-highest manufacturer (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles USA) has just 46 recalls so far.

To paint another sobering picture of Ford’s defect history this year, Ford has also issued three of the largest recalls out of any manufacturer in 2025. The top three recalls, all of which pertain just to Ford’s rearview cameras, each affect more than a million vehicles.

NHTSA Recalls by Manufacturer, as of November 20, 2025. Top 12 manufacturers displayed. Report Received Date equals This Year. Ford Motor Company has 137 recalls issued. Chrysler has 46 recalls. Forest River Inc. has 36 recalls. Most other manufacturers have issued fewer than 25 years.

Ford Has Highest Number Of Recalls In 2025

Since the beginning of 2025, Ford has dwarfed all other manufacturers in issuing safety recalls for their vehicles. Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reveals that from January to March, most manufacturers had issued eight recalls at most – with Ford as the notable exception at 34 recalls by the end of this time period.1

The second quarter did not look much better for Ford. Restricting the data to just that time period, Ford issued 53 recalls from April through June 2025. Though recalls slowed in the following months for Ford, it still ended the third quarter with 114 recalls to Chrysler’s 34 in total for the year.

Additional safety actions keep pushing Ford’s recall count higher. In November, Ford issued a recall for instrument panel display failures that prevent warning lights, vehicle speed and other safety details from displaying while driving.2 Shortly after, Ford recalled certain hybrid vehicles for battery issues that increased the risk of fires.3

Ford has already nearly doubled the number of recalls it had last year, at 72 total recalls in 2024. It continued to outpace every other major automaker when it issued its Ford engine block heater recall and later its Ford Super Duty steering recall – relatively insignificant safety actions compared to the rest of Ford’s roster.

This Year’s Three Largest Recalls Belong To Ford

Many of Ford’s most significant recalls this year relate to rearview camera image issues, on the heels of Ford being forced to pay a $165 million civil penalty in 20244 for failing to issue recalls in a timely manner for defective rearview cameras.

Ford Recall 25S49 / NHTSA 25V-315 already set a record in May 2025 for 1,076,138 vehicles recalled just for backup camera screen issues. Having already issued 11 backup camera-related recalls this year, Ford was forced to address backup camera screens freezing or going black due to software issues. The size of this recall forced Ford to issue the remedy in phases. Interim notices were mailed June 26, 2025 and owner notification letters were sent on October 8 – more than three months later.5

Ford broke its own record again twice. In September, Ford issued Recall 25S29 / NHTSA 25V-572 for 1,456,417 vehicles spanning model years 2015–2019.6 Interim notices informed owners that repair parts are not yet available.

Ford Recall 25SA9 / NHTSA 25V-695 was issued the following month. The recall, with a staggering 1,448,655 potentially affected vehicles, managed to have very little overlap with the previous recall’s population. Unfortunately for these drivers, the final remedy is not anticipated to be available until June 2026.7

Ford’s Actions Have Massive Costs

The massive civil penalty is not the only worrisome cost for Ford Motor Company. A relatively small Ford 1.5-L engine recall may come with a cost of about $821 per vehicle, or about $570 million in total.8

Safety recalls only add to Ford’s financial troubles. On September 12, 2025,9 Ford reached confidential settlements in two massive lawsuits that made our list of Ford’s Worst Scandals in History. The cases allege that certain Ford Super Duty trucks were built with weak roofs that collapsed in rollover events.

Hill v. Ford, which alleged the roof of a 2002 Ford F-250 in a rollover accident was defectively designed, resulted in the jury awarding $1.7 billion in punitive damages. In Brogdon v. Ford, the adult children of Debra and Herman Mills sued Ford for wrongful death after the roof of their 2015 Ford F-250 collapsed in a rollover accident. The jury then awarded $2.5 billion in punitive damages.

These massive awards are just a fraction of what it would cost Ford to repurchase the more than 5 million trucks it sold with potentially defective roof designs.10

“It is no mystery why Ford has let the havoc continue,” Butler Prather, the firm representing plaintiffs in both cases, wrote in a statement. “Ford has admitted it sold 5,174,392 ‘super duty’ trucks with the weak roofs across the United States. Ford also admits there are approximately 3.8 million ‘super duty’ trucks still registered in the United States today. There is no ‘fix’ for the extraordinarily weak roofs. Using a conservative average value of $10,000, it would cost Ford $38 billion to buy them all back, plus the cost of disposing of them. Obviously Ford’s calculus is that it is cheaper just to settle claims as they are made.”

A Record Year Reveals a Deeper Pattern

Ford is continuing a four-year streak of issuing the highest number of auto recalls out of any auto manufacturer. However, both its raw number and its share of total recalls per year has continued to grow. Ford went from issuing 13% of recalls in 2021 to a whopping 36% of recalls in 2025 so far.

To be fair to Ford, auto manufacturers are not always able to detect important safety issues until after vehicles are sold. In such cases, auto recalls are a vital part of addressing vehicle defects and ensuring consumer safety.

However, Ford’s growing share of recalls indicates deeper issues in design, manufacturing and quality control. Together, these trends point to a much larger pattern of producing defective or otherwise unsafe vehicles to the public.

Such a pattern of behavior should always come with legal consequences. If Ford prioritized proactive consumer safety measures accordingly, such a high number of recalls would not be necessary. As long as Ford continues this trajectory, it will unfortunately appear to have other priorities – making our work representing the interests of consumers all the more necessary.

  1. NHTSA Recalls by Manufacturer. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. https://data.transportation.gov/Automobiles/NHTSA-Recalls-by-Manufacturer/mu99-t4jn
  2. Cunningham, M. (2025, November 19). Ford recalls nearly 230,000 U.S. vehicles over instrument panel display failure. Cbsnews.com. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ford-recall-instrument-panel-display-failure-nhtsa/
  3. Martin, S. (2021). Over 20,000 Ford vehicles recalled due to battery issue. See impacted models. USA TODAY. https://www.usatoday.com/story/cars/recalls/2025/11/19/ford-recalls-hybrid-vehicles-battery-issue/87351909007/
  4. (2024, November 14). NHTSA Issues $165 Million Civil Penalty, Second Largest in Agency’s History. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/ford-consent-order-165-million-civil-penalty
  5. (2025, May 14). Rearview Camera Image May Not Display. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. https://www.nhtsa.gov/?nhtsaId=25V315000
  6. (2025, September 4). Blank or Distorted Rearview Camera Image. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. https://www.nhtsa.gov/?nhtsaId=25V572000
  7. (2025, October 13). Rearview Camera Image May Not Display. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. https://www.nhtsa.gov/?nhtsaId=25V695000
  8. Ford Motor Company. (2025). Form 8-K. Ford SEC Filings Details. https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000037996/bffc4218-fdb6-4c7f-8c41-9ba6671936a4.pdf. Retrieved from https://shareholder.ford.com/financials/sec-filings/sec-filings-details/default.aspx?FilingId=18615456
  9. Ford Motor Company. (2025, October 24). Form 10-Q. Ford SEC Filings Details. https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000037996/38575a60-2dc9-43e5-a5b6-8937b2cbc8c7.pdf Retrieved from https://shareholder.ford.com/financials/default.aspx
  10. (2025, September 24). After two verdicts over a billion dollars each, Ford settles another ‘super duty” pickup truck roof crush case in Oregon handled by Butler Prather. Butler Prather. https://assets.alm.com/ac/d8/9cf454a148a5bb5c83f902c8ff42/2025-09-24-final-press-release-yraguen-v-ford.pdf