Ford issued more than 150 recalls in 2025, nearly double the previous single-year record of 77 set by General Motors in 2014. That is not a typo. One automaker, one year, more than 150 recalls.
Between 2020 and 2026, recalls have swept through nearly every model in Ford's lineup. Over six years, 16 Ford models have been affected, totaling tens of millions of vehicles. The lone survivor: the Ford GT, a mid-engine two-seater sports car discontinued after 2022 and inspired by the GT40 that dominated the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the 1960s.
The car Ford doesn't make anymore is the only one it didn't have to recall.
As Fox Business reported, the scope of the problem is staggering when you walk through the lineup model by model. Among Ford's seven SUV and crossover models:
Each has been subject to at least one recall.
All five major Ford truck and pickup models have also been affected:
The issues range from windshields, suspension, and rearview cameras to possible hydraulic defects and potential airbag problems. Ford has recalled more than 615,000 vehicles over wiper and driveshaft defects and more than 412,000 vehicles over a suspension issue. The Mustang, Ford's passenger car, and the Transit commercial van line have not been spared either.
This is not a single bad part from a single supplier. This is systemic.
Ford framed the avalanche of recalls as a feature, not a bug. In a statement issued in summer 2025, the company said:
"The increase in recalls reflects our intensive strategy to quickly find and fix hardware and software issues and go the extra mile to help protect customers."
The company also pointed to expanded internal capacity:
"Ford has more than doubled its team of safety and technical experts in the past two years and significantly increased testing to failure on critical systems in current Ford vehicles such as powertrains, steering and braking. Insights from this testing are being incorporated into current production."
So the argument is: we're not building worse cars, we're just better at finding out how bad they are. That's a bold communications strategy for a company whose stock sits at $12.15, down 1.54% at last check.
There is something admirable about a company that aggressively identifies its own defects rather than waiting for lawsuits and federal investigations to force the issue. Credit where it's due. But doubling your safety team and dramatically increasing failure testing raises an obvious question: what was happening before?
If Ford needed to "more than double" its safety experts to catch these problems, the previous staffing level was plainly inadequate for the complexity of vehicles rolling off the line. That's not a story about proactive excellence. That's a story about playing catch-up after years of underinvestment in quality assurance while pushing out new models, new platforms, and new electric variants at breakneck speed.
American automakers have spent the last several years chasing the EV transition, pouring billions into electric platforms under enormous political and regulatory pressure. Ford committed vast resources to the F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mach-E. Both are on the recall list. Meanwhile, the bread-and-butter trucks and SUVs that actually pay the bills have been hemorrhaging quality.
This is what happens when companies let political trends drive engineering priorities. The customer who needs a reliable F-150 for work doesn't care about your ESG score. He cares about whether his driveshaft holds together.
It is worth pausing on the Ford GT's clean record. The GT was a low-volume, hand-built supercar with obsessive engineering standards and a price tag to match. Ford poured disproportionate attention into every unit because the reputational stakes of a GT failure would have been enormous.
The mass-market vehicles got no such treatment. When you build tens of millions of vehicles across 16 model lines, and the only one without a recall is the limited-production halo car you stopped making in 2022, the problem is not isolated. It is cultural.
Ford says insights from its expanded testing are being incorporated into current production. Consumers will judge that claim with their wallets. Trust, once broken across an entire lineup, is not rebuilt with press releases.
For now, Ford holds a record no automaker wants. More than 150 recalls in a single year. Tens of millions of vehicles affected across six years. Every current model is touched.
The only Ford that escaped was the one they stopped building.
