If it feels like there has been an inordinate number of Ford recalls lately, you’re not imagining things. The Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker has recorded more safety recalls in the first six months of 2025 than any other car company has in an entire calendar year. Truly, Ford is in a class of its own when it comes to needing to fix its old mistakes.
Through the end of June, Ford issued 88 freaking safety recalls. It’s pretty much lapped the field four or five times over when you consider the next closest manufacturer — a recreational-vehicle company called Forest River — has only issued 21 recalls. This is just the latest in a worrying pattern for the Blue Oval, which has been either first or second in yearly recalls since 2020. In fact, just yesterday we told you about a recall that impacted over 850,000 vehicles. From The Wall Street Journal:
Ford said nine of its recalls this year are expansions of earlier recalls. In March, the automaker said it was conducting an audit of past recalls that included software fixes as part of the remedy. So far, 33 recalls—about 37% of the total so far this year—have been issued as a result of the continuing audit, Ford said.
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Ford said it has significantly improved product quality in recent years, with four new models winning accolades from a recent J.D. Power study on quality. The company has more than doubled its team of safety and technical experts and expanded testing on critical systems, such as vehicle powertrains, steering and braking.
“The increase in recalls reflects our intensive strategy to quickly find and fix any hardware and software issues and go the extra mile to protect customers,” said Kumar Galhotra, Ford’s chief operating officer.
As you might expect, the company really wants this waking nightmare of initial quality issues to be over.
Ford’s expectation is that, over time, recall campaigns and the total number of recalled vehicles will drop as a result of these internal changes, company officials said.
“We believe this approach will lead to systemic and lasting positive change and help us reach world-class levels for quality, safety and customer satisfaction,” Galhotra said.
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Ford and its chief executive, Jim Farley, have staked out improving quality as a priority for the Dearborn, Mich., automaker. Improving quality will also help to reduce the billions of dollars Ford spends every year on warranty claims and safety recalls. The company hired a quality czar in 2022, and it has tied 70% of executive annual bonuses directly and indirectly to quality.
To be fair to Ford, recalls across the industry have been rising, with more than 1,000 recorded in 2024, up from the roughly 800 recalls a decade earlier, according to the WSJ. Many of these recalls are related to small issues like faulty interior lights and wonky sun visors, but, of course, many have much more serious consequences.
