"Recalls" and "warranty claims" are dirty words for automakers, who would rather focus on their corporate accomplishments than on their failings. Aren't we all like that? Ford has been particularly hard hit with more than 180 recalls since January 2025, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That... is a lot.
Top management in Dearborn may have thought the worst had passed when 2025 ended, when NHTSA reported 150 Ford recalls impacting 12.9 million vehicles. But that was just the beginning. So far in 2026, 33 separate recalls have already tagged 9.6 million Ford vehicles for defects. If this pace continues, Ford will shoot well beyond the 2025 tally. In the 12 months that ended in March, Ford's recall of 19.6 million vehicles outpaced all other automakers combined.
Ford's 33 recalls this year account for 28% of the industry total. Tied for second place in total recalls this year are General Motors, Toyota, and Fiat-Chrysler (now Stellantis), each dealing with 11, with each automaker accounting for 9% of the industry total, according to NHTSA.
What is going on with Ford quality? Remember when Ford proudly proclaimed that "Quality is Job One" in the 1980s? The last substantive Ford statement about recalls came last July when Chief Operating Officer Kumar Galhotra opened with, "Ford has significantly improved product quality."
A Metric Working In Ford's Favor
We reached out to Ford with several questions about recalls, and the answers are not far from Galhotra's messaging of nine months ago, focusing on JD Power identifying Ford as the most awarded brand in the 2025 US Initial Quality Study.
"And during Q4 earnings, we reported a $500 million reduction in warranty costs in 2025 compared to 2024, which is a reflection of our team's collective focus on getting the fundamentals right," company spokesperson Mike Levine told CarBuzz via email.
Publicly traded automakers in the US must disclose recall and warranty costs in financial reports, and auto expert John McElroy dug into them to find out if Ford ranks at the top (see chart above). And actually, they don't. Ford is No.5, reporting $5.2 billion in warranty and recall costs in 2025, behind Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, and No.1 Volkswagen, which paid $15.9 billion for warranty and recall claims.
Clearly, the number of individual recalls does not correspond with the cost associated with each one. For instance, GM's 27 recalls seem minor compared with Ford's 150 in 2025. Yet, it cost GM considerably more cash.
Read the full article on CarBuzz
This article originally appeared on CarBuzz and is republished here with permission.
