Ford has recalled 41,748 vehicles because LED headlight assemblies may contain a contaminated chip that can cut out the lights. The campaign covers 2025 to 2027 Expedition SUVs and 2026 F-250, F-350, F-450 and F-550 Super Duty pickups. Ford reports that the condition does not meet the federal lighting standard.
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The fault sits inside a light source that most drivers assume lasts for the life of the vehicle. An LED has no filament to burn out, so when one quits, the cause is usually somewhere in the semiconductor itself.
A contaminated chip inside the LED assembly
Ford’s defect report, filed with NHTSA on September 22, 2026, describes contamination under the LED chip in some headlamp assemblies. The company traces it to the chip’s manufacturing at a Tier 3 supplier it does not name, with the assemblies built by Flex N Gate of Effingham, Illinois, a Tier 1 supplier. The effect is a light that is diminished or inoperative, not a light that flickers; the filing does not mention flicker.
What goes dark depends on the vehicle. On Super Duty trucks with LED reflector or projector headlamps, the daytime running lamps and parking lamps may be diminished or dead, and the low beams, high beams or both can be affected. On the Expedition, only the low and high beams are affected, and only with the LED reflector headlamps. The NHTSA record lists the possible losses as daytime running lights, parking lights, high beams or low beams.
FMVSS 108 and the warranty trail
The standard Ford says is not met is Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108, the rule that requires headlamps to provide upper and lower beams, spells out the daytime running lamp and parking lamp requirements, and aims to make a vehicle both able to see and easy to see in daylight and darkness. A lamp that cannot meet its output fails the rule whether or not anyone has crashed.
The evidence that put the problem in front of Ford was ordinary warranty paperwork. On May 21, 2026, warranty claims about inoperative LED headlamps in 2026 Super Duty trucks reached the company’s Critical Concern Review Group. Through the summer, engineers worked with the Tier 1 supplier, traced the contamination and, by July and August, identified the affected models and a first build range at the Kentucky Truck Plant. Newer traceability data in September narrowed that range, and Ford’s Field Review Committee approved the action on September 15.
As of September 10, the company counted six warranty claims and six field reports, each on a different vehicle, and no accidents or injuries. Ford estimates that 1 percent of the vehicles carry the defect, which works out to a few hundred of the 41,748 vehicles, so most owners who receive a letter will find a headlamp pair that passes inspection. The recall exists because Ford cannot tell the good assemblies from the bad ones without checking each. The filing says a dashboard indicator lights when the low or high beams are inoperative, which gives a driver a cue for those two functions but not for a dead daytime running or parking lamp. Those lamps matter because they are what other drivers see in daylight, so a Super Duty with a dead one can be harder to pick out in traffic long before dusk.
Nothing in the NHTSA record tells owners to stop driving. The campaign carries no park-it or park-outside advisory, and the remedy is an inspection at a dealer. That fits the numbers in the filing, since Ford estimates the defect in about one vehicle in a hundred and has logged only a dozen reports from the field.
Who is in the 41,748 and how the repair works
The population breaks down by model: 17,512 F-250s, 10,295 F-350s, 523 F-450s, 120 F-550s and 13,298 Expeditions. Super Duty trucks were built from August 4, 2025, to August 4, 2026, and Expeditions from June 24, 2025, to July 2, 2026. The filing includes vehicles that were unsold or had under four months in service as of September 15.
Because vehicles were not built in VIN order, eligibility cannot be read from a serial number range. Owners can check a VIN with NHTSA’s recall lookup, call Ford at 1-866-436-7332, or ask a Ford or Lincoln dealer. Ford’s recall number is 26C43, and VINs become searchable on NHTSA.gov from October 26, 2026.
Dealers will inspect the left and right headlamp assemblies free of charge and replace any that fail with assemblies built without contamination, using Expedition part numbers SL1B-13008-AN and SL1B-13035-AN or the Super Duty equivalents beginning RC3B. Only the failing side is replaced; a pair that passes inspection stays on the vehicle. NHTSA’s acknowledgment letter of September 29, signed by recall division chief Alex Ansley, lists October 26 for owner letters, while Ford’s filing schedules dealer notices for October 26 to 30 and remedy letters for November 6 to 13. The agency’s campaign 26V606000 record is the one to check for changes.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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