Ford Motor Company recalled 19,561,427 vehicles in a single year, counting the 12 months from April 2025 through March 2026, according to a study by the used-car search site iSeeCars. The figure is larger than the combined total of every other manufacturer in the same data set, and it is more than five times the 3,511,321 units Ford recalled in the preceding 12-month window.
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The total counts units affected by recall campaigns filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, so it measures the scale of a company’s campaigns across a year, which is a different thing from a tally of unique cars. A vehicle covered by two separate campaigns is counted in each, and a single large campaign can move a manufacturer’s yearly total by millions of units.
The arithmetic behind “more than the rest of the industry”
iSeeCars built its ranking from NHTSA safety recall campaign data current as of April 2, 2026, totaling units affected for each manufacturer. In the iSeeCars recall study, the industry total for April 2025 through March 2026 is 38,265,569 units. Subtracting Ford’s 19,561,427 leaves 18,704,142 units for every other manufacturer put together, so Ford’s figure exceeds the rest of the field by 857,285 units and makes up about 51 percent of the whole.
The gap to the next names on the list is wider still. Toyota Motor Corporation ranks second at 4,103,000 units, so Ford’s total is nearly 4.8 times Toyota’s. Chrysler, under Stellantis, follows with 3,410,572, then Hyundai Motor America with 1,849,226, Nissan North America with 1,546,488 and General Motors, seventh, with 1,160,238.
At the other end of the table, Mercedes-Benz USA recorded 122,331 units, Tesla 83,265 and Lucid 41,802. In its brand-level findings the study singles out Mercedes-Benz as the least-recalled brand. The spread from top to bottom of that table, from 19,561,427 units to a few tens of thousands, is the reason a single-year ranking by units reads so differently from one by campaigns.
A fivefold jump from one year to the next
The year before, April 2024 through March 2025, Ford’s total was 3,511,321 units, so the latest window is 5.6 times larger. The industry as a whole rose from 21,508,190 to 38,265,569, a factor of 1.8, which means Ford alone accounts for most of the increase. Ford was not the only manufacturer to jump: Nissan went from 100,672 to 1,546,488 units, Subaru from 20,366 to 1,196,421 and Volvo from 9,863 to 844,821, while Honda fell from 3,323,702 to 935,042 and BMW from 1,600,300 to 614,509. The first quarter of 2026 sharpened the contrast: Ford logged 7,661,478 units against 987,502 in the first quarter of 2025, in a quarter where the industry total was 11,735,564.
Karl Brauer, iSeeCars’ executive analyst, said Ford’s recall numbers have led the industry for several years, a pattern he tied to damage to the company’s image and a squeeze on its profit margin. He was just as direct about the opposite movement at Tesla: “Kudos to Tesla for dropping from over 3 million recalls between April 2024 and March 2025 to less than 100,000 in the past 12 months.”
Campaign counts, a record year and a consent order
Units and campaigns are separate measures, and Ford leads on both. CBS Detroit’s summary of the iSeeCars findings put Ford at 153 recalls over the past 12 months, more than any other automaker. Autoline Detroit’s John McElroy, quoted in that report, noted that Ford was the only automaker to reduce its warranty costs last year, and Ford said its warranty costs fell by about $500 million in 2025 compared with 2024. The company also said roughly 80 percent of its 2026 recalls stem from software issues that can be fixed over the air, through mobile service or at a dealer.
Calendar 2025 alone produced a record. Fox 2 Detroit reported 152 Ford recalls in the year, nearly double the previous record of 77 that General Motors set in 2014. WWJ 950 automotive reporter Jeff Gilbert told the station: “It’s a record. No car company has come close to that number of recalls in a year.” The count of 152 and the CBS Detroit count of 153 come from different windows and sources.
The regulator had already put Ford under a formal order. On November 14, 2024, NHTSA announced a $165 million civil penalty and consent order for failing to recall vehicles with defective rearview cameras in a timely way and for not providing accurate and complete recall information. Deputy Administrator Sophie Shulman said then that timely and accurate recalls are critical to keeping everyone safe on the road. The order runs for at least three years, with an independent party overseeing Ford’s performance obligations.
The totals have kept climbing into 2026. AutoGuide counted 51 Ford recall filings covering 11,271,100 vehicles by late June, including a single campaign for about 4.4 million trucks, a trailer-lighting software defect repaired with an over-the-air update. The iSeeCars table, current as of April 2, 2026, answers how many units Ford recalled across its April 2025 to March 2026 campaigns, and nothing in it speaks to how many separate owners were reached or how quickly repairs followed.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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