Ford recalled 565,691 Broncos over wiring that can chafe and start a fire

Ford has told federal safety regulators that more than half a million Broncos need a wiring fix after engineers traced a string of engine-bay fires to a chafed harness. The recall covers 2021 through 2026 model-year Bronco and Bronco Raptor SUVs, and it lands on a vehicle that many owners take off-road and park inside attached garages overnight.

What Ford found in the engine bay

The recall, filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under campaign number 26V468, covers 565,691 Broncos and Bronco Raptors. Ford’s engineers determined that a wiring harness in the engine compartment lacked sufficient abrasion protection, and that constant movement between the harness and nearby components can wear through the protective covering over time. Once the insulation is gone, the exposed circuits are vulnerable to a short circuit.

Fifteen incidents, then a formal count of fires

Ford’s own review, prompted after 15 possible incidents surfaced, identified seven fires involving Bronco Raptor models and eight involving base Bronco models that appeared to have started on the passenger side of the engine compartment. The company estimates that only about 1% of the recalled population actually carries the defect, and it says it has no reports tying the wiring flaw to a crash or an injury. Still, the pattern was consistent enough across both trims that Ford opted for a fleet-wide recall rather than a narrower fix.

Warning signs before the flames

Drivers are unlikely to get much notice if the defect activates. The earliest signs, according to Ford’s filing, are a dashboard alert or the smell of smoke coming through the interior air vents. In vehicles where the short has already progressed, flames can appear on the passenger side of the engine compartment. Because the wiring in question sits inside the engine bay rather than the cabin, an owner driving with the windows up and the radio on could plausibly miss the earliest cues until smoke is already visible.

How Ford is fixing it

The remedy is straightforward: dealership technicians will install new protective covers over the affected wiring at no charge to owners. Owner notification letters began going out on August 24, 2026, and Ford has set up a dedicated customer service line, 1-866-436-7332, for recall-specific questions. Owners who want to check their vehicle before a letter arrives can enter their VIN directly at NHTSA.gov, searching under campaign 26V468, or use Ford’s own recall lookup tool. Because the fix is a physical cover installation rather than a software update or part replacement, dealers should be able to complete most repairs relatively quickly once parts are in stock, though wait times will vary by region as more than half a million vehicles funnel through service departments simultaneously.

Why the scale matters for daily habits

A recall of this size touches a meaningful share of the Bronco fleet built since the model’s 2021 relaunch, and it arrives at a moment when the vehicle has become a common sight both on trails and in suburban driveways. Fire risk tied to a parked vehicle carries different stakes depending on where that vehicle sits overnight. A short that ignites in a parking lot is a property loss; the same short in an attached garage can spread to a house before anyone notices. Owners awaiting parts or a service appointment are not required to stop driving the vehicle, but Ford’s filing effectively asks them to stay alert to the dashboard-alert and vent-smoke warning signs in the interim, and safety advocates generally recommend parking a recalled vehicle with a fire-related defect outside rather than in an attached garage until the repair is done.

A recurring theme in Ford’s recall history

This is not the first time engine-compartment wiring has drawn scrutiny at Ford, and vehicle recalls tied to fire risk are common enough across the industry that they rarely single out one manufacturer as an outlier. What distinguishes this case is the combination of a high-volume model, a defect concentrated in a single, identifiable component, and a repair simple enough that Ford was able to commit to a no-cost fix within weeks of finalizing the investigation. Ford internally tracks the campaign under reference 26S55, a separate identifier from the NHTSA campaign number, which owners may see referenced interchangeably in dealer paperwork or customer service calls.

What owners should do while they wait

For owners, the practical takeaway is narrow but time-sensitive: confirm inclusion by VIN, watch for the notification letter, and schedule the free repair once parts are available at a local dealer. In the meantime, drivers do not need to stop using the vehicle, but the recall filing effectively asks them to treat any dashboard alert or unusual smell as an immediate reason to pull over and shut the engine off rather than continue driving to a destination. Given that only around 1% of the recalled population is believed to actually carry the defective wiring, the overwhelming majority of Bronco owners who receive a notification letter will get the protective cover installed as a precaution rather than because their specific vehicle has already shown a problem. That distinction matters for anyone trying to gauge how urgently to act: the recall is broad because Ford could not identify which specific units have the worn harness without inspecting them individually, not because every recalled Bronco is actively at risk.

This article was created with the assistance of AI and reviewed by an editor.

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