Ford Motor Company just finished a year that will be remembered less for new models than for an unprecedented wave of safety problems. The automaker triggered 152 separate safety alerts in 2025, a record-breaking tally that has turned its recall strategy into a defining story for owners, regulators, and investors. I see that surge not as a single scandal but as a window into how modern vehicles, corporate risk tolerance, and federal oversight are colliding on American roads.
Behind the headline number are very real hazards, from sudden power loss to rollaway risks and failing headlights, spread across nameplates that were supposed to anchor Ford’s future. The scale of the alerts, and the speed with which they piled up, raise hard questions about how quickly the company can stabilize quality while still pushing into electric and software-heavy vehicles.
How Ford blew past the old recall record
The raw count is staggering on its own: Ford Motor Company logged 152 safety alerts in a single year, eclipsing anything the industry has seen in at least a decade. Earlier in the year, analysts were already flagging that Ford had hit the symbolic mark of 100 recalls, and by the time the total reached 152, the company had far outpaced rivals and its own recent history. That volume reflects not just a few big campaigns but a drumbeat of separate defects that kept surfacing across the lineup.
When Ford crossed the threshold of 100 recalls and then 103 earlier in the year, it was already being framed as a “Dubious Record” for an automaker that had never before approached those levels. Before 2025, the high-water mark for any carmaker was 77 recalls in a single year, a figure Ford ultimately doubled with room to spare. By the time the year closed with 152 safety alerts, Ford had not only shattered that earlier benchmark but also set a new standard for how aggressively a manufacturer can be forced to revisit vehicles already on the road.
The safety defects behind the numbers
It is tempting to treat 152 alerts as an abstract statistic, but each one traces back to a specific failure that could put drivers or pedestrians at risk. Some of the most consequential campaigns involved drive power loss in popular models such as the Maverick and Mustang Mach-E, where owners faced the prospect of vehicles suddenly losing propulsion in traffic. Those issues were part of a broader cluster of problems that pushed the total to 152, as Ford scrambled to address defects that cut across both traditional combustion platforms and newer electric architectures.
Another high-profile case involved headlights that could fail on certain 2025 to 2026 Mustang Mach-E vehicles, a defect that affected more than 45,000 Mustang Mach-E units and raised obvious concerns about nighttime visibility. Those headlight and power loss campaigns were among the 152 alerts that, taken together, eclipsed the previous decade’s recall record that had stood since 2014. The pattern is clear: this is not a story about a single faulty part, but about a web of safety-critical systems that have struggled under the weight of rapid product change.
Rollaway risk and the 273,000-vehicle parking defect
One of the most alarming episodes in Ford’s recall year centered on a rollaway risk tied to a faulty parking function. The company had to notify owners that certain vehicles might not stay put even when drivers believed they were securely parked, a scenario that can turn a routine errand into a serious hazard in a driveway, parking lot, or crowded street. The scope of that campaign underscored how a single defect in a core control system can ripple across a huge slice of the fleet.
In that case, Ford recalled nearly 273,000 vehicles after federal regulators detailed how the malfunction could prevent the parking function from engaging properly. Reporter Mary Cunningham, a Reporter for CBS MoneyWatch, explained that She covered how the defect could allow vehicles to roll even when drivers thought they had shifted into park. For owners, that kind of recall is not a minor inconvenience, it is a direct challenge to the basic trust that a parked vehicle will stay where it is left.
From July’s breaking point to a year-end avalanche
The pace of Ford’s safety actions did not creep up gradually, it spiked. By mid-summer, the company had already broken the record for most recalls in a single year, even though several months remained on the calendar. At that point, Ford’s tally had already surpassed the combined total of several competing automakers, signaling that the company’s quality problems were not just marginally worse than peers but in a different league altogether.
Industry coverage in Jul showed Ford had already broken the record for car recalls in a year, overtaking the mark once associated with General Motors. Around the same time, trade observers noted that Auto Service World JUL and writer Adam Malik were citing Industry data that highlighted how quickly Ford’s campaigns were stacking up. By year’s end, what started as a summer shock had hardened into a new normal, with the company issuing safety alerts at a cadence that would have been unthinkable only a few years earlier.
Inside Ford’s recall strategy and leadership response
From the outside, it can be hard to tell where aggressive safety vigilance ends and deeper engineering trouble begins. Ford’s leadership has tried to frame the wave of recalls as evidence that the company is catching and fixing problems rather than ignoring them. That argument rests on the idea that modern vehicles are so complex that a high recall count may reflect a low tolerance for risk, not simply poor design or manufacturing.
Ford CEO Jim Farley has been explicit that he sees the current approach as a strategic choice, with Ford CEO Jim Farley arguing that “This is a better play for our company and shareholders” than allowing defects to linger. At the same time, the sheer volume of alerts, including those tied to drive power loss and failing headlights in models like the Maverick and Mustang Mach-E, suggests that Ford Motor Company’s internal quality systems are still struggling to keep pace with the vehicles it is putting on the road, as reflected in the 152 safety alerts logged across multiple models.
What the recall wave means for specific models and owners
For drivers, the record is not an abstract corporate problem, it shows up as letters in the mailbox and service appointments that disrupt daily life. Owners of long-running nameplates like the Taurus have been pulled into new campaigns even years after purchase, as Ford revisits older platforms alongside its latest offerings. That mix of legacy and cutting-edge vehicles in the recall stream underscores how quality challenges are not confined to any one generation of product.
Recent notices have included a 2016 to 2019 Ford Taurus Recall with a Potential Number of Units Affected of 101,944, part of a broader slate of campaigns listed under Latest Ford Recalls. In parallel, databases of Recall notices show issues like a Rear Shock Absorber Reservoir May Detach, with details such as Date Announced and Affected Years spelled out so owners can see whether their specific vehicle is covered. For customers, the practical question is not how many recalls Ford has issued in total, but whether their own car is safe to drive and how quickly repairs can be completed.
Regulators, rollaway fears, and the legal backdrop
Federal regulators have been central to surfacing and shaping many of Ford’s 2025 safety actions. The rollaway cases, in particular, highlight how investigations can move from technical bulletins to full-blown recalls when evidence shows a clear risk of injury or property damage. When a parking system fails to hold a vehicle in place, the stakes are obvious, especially in neighborhoods where children play near driveways or on sloped streets.
Coverage of the rollaway defect emphasized that, as described in the case, the malfunction could prevent the system from properly engaging the parking function even when drivers believed it was set, meaning the system might fail to deliver the basic security owners expect. That warning was echoed in an alert framed as an Alert for 270,000 Drivers, which underscored how the defect could allow vehicles to roll away unexpectedly. For Ford, each such case is not only a technical problem but a potential legal and reputational flashpoint that can shape how regulators view the company’s broader safety culture.
How drivers can check their own recall status
With 152 safety alerts in circulation, Ford owners cannot assume that their dealer will catch every issue automatically. The most reliable way to know whether a specific vehicle is affected is to run its unique identifier through federal databases that track open recalls. That process is straightforward, but it requires drivers to take the initiative rather than waiting passively for a letter or email.
State agencies have been urging motorists to use federal tools, reminding them that All you have to do is go to NHTSA’s recall site and enter your 17 digit VIN to see if your car is part of a recall. Federal safety officials reinforce the same message, noting that Every vehicle has a unique Vehicle Identification Number, and advising drivers to Look for the VIN on the lower left of the windshield or on registration documents. In a year when one automaker alone has generated 152 alerts, that kind of routine check is no longer optional for anyone who wants to stay ahead of potential defects.
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