Inside the brake pedal position sensor of 2,017 Chrysler Pacifica and Voyager minivans sits a small capacitor that can crack. When it does, the minivan can lose electronic stability control, the system that brakes individual wheels to catch a skid. FCA, Chrysler’s parent company, filed the defect report with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on September 1, 2026.
The vans are 2025 and 2026 models. Dealers were notified first, and the vehicle identification numbers became searchable on NHTSA’s recall lookup on September 9. Owner letters were scheduled to begin going out on September 29.
Capacitor inside the pedal sensor
NHTSA’s campaign record, number 26V561000, gives the defect in one line: the brake pedal position sensor capacitor “may be cracked, which can cause a loss of electronic stability control.” The agency’s stated consequence is equally short: with stability control gone, a van that starts to slide gets no help from the system in braking individual wheels to pull it straight. FCA’s own recall number for the campaign is 69D, and the part is a sensor made by CTS Corporation under part number 68236598AA, according to the manufacturer’s defect report filed with NHTSA.
The sensor matters because it tells the vehicle’s computers when the driver is on the brake. A cracked capacitor can stop that signal from being read properly, and Mopar Insiders reports that the failure may also light a warning lamp on the dash. The effect FCA documented is that stability control, which the federal standard requires to be operational “during all phases of driving,” can switch itself off at the moment a driver reaches for the brake in a slide.
Mopar Insiders places the supplier, CTS Corporation, in Elkhart, Indiana. Neither the NHTSA record nor the manufacturer’s report says how many sensors have actually failed on the road, which is why the recall is framed around a population of vehicles rather than a count of incidents.
357 Voyagers, 1,652 Pacificas and eight hybrids
The 2,017 figure is the total in the NHTSA campaign record, listed as potentially affected units across the 2025-2026 Voyager, the 2025-2026 Pacifica and the 2026 Pacifica plug-in hybrid. The manufacturer’s report splits them into 357 Voyagers, 1,652 Pacificas and eight plug-in hybrids, so the hybrid is a rounding error in a recall dominated by the gasoline Pacifica.
“Potentially affected” is the operative phrase. AutoEvolution’s summary of the filing puts the estimated defect rate at about 10% of the recalled population. On that estimate, most of the 2,017 vans carry a sound sensor but are on the list because the faulty ones cannot be told apart from the outside. The same coverage notes that the campaign carries no do-not-drive advisory.
Stability control as a federal requirement
Electronic stability control is not optional equipment. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 126 governs it, and the filing frames the problem as a compliance failure as well as a crash risk: a van whose system shuts down when intervention is expected no longer meets the standard. In the report’s words, a failure at that moment “can cause a vehicle crash without prior warning.”
A capacitor is one of the least visible components in a modern car, yet this one sits upstream of a safety system with its own federal standard. That is the logic behind recalling an entire block of vans over a part most owners will never see. The consequence text NHTSA published makes no distinction between the gasoline and plug-in versions: the same sensor, the same failure, the same loss of intervention when a van begins to slide on a wet or icy road, which is the situation the standard was written around.
From field reports to dealer service
The timeline in the filing runs from a March 25, 2026 investigation opening, through a root-cause analysis finished in May, to a review of field and customer-assistance records covering June through August. The report reached NHTSA on September 1, and The Brake Report’s coverage dated the recall itself to September 4.
Of the three dates in the record, the sequence is plain: the investigation opened in March, the defect report reached NHTSA on September 1, and dealer notification followed on September 9, eight days later. Owner mailings came last, scheduled for September 29, which means the lag between the regulator receiving the report and the people driving the vans being told in writing was four weeks.
The remedy is a dealer inspection and, where needed, replacement of the brake pedal position sensor with a part made without the defect. The campaign also draws a line around what is known. Secondary coverage gives conflicting build windows for the affected vans, one running from June 28 to October 31, 2025 and another from September 11 to October 25, 2025, so owners checking a specific van can search its VIN against campaign 26V561, and the 2,017 count is the number to hold the record against if NHTSA later amends the filing to add vehicles or build dates.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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