Tail lights can go dark on 13,330 new Dodge Durangos

Terminals in the tail light wiring harness of 13,330 Dodge Durangos may be damaged, and when that happens the tail lights can fail. FCA, the Stellantis unit that builds Dodge and Chrysler vehicles, reported the defect to NHTSA on October 22, 2026, and flagged it as a violation of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108, the federal lighting rule. All of the vehicles are 2026 model-year Durangos.

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A tail lamp does one job for the driver behind it: it announces that a vehicle is there, and roughly how far away. When the lamp goes dark, that message fails in a way the Durango’s own driver cannot see from the seat.

What FMVSS 108 asks of a rear lamp

NHTSA’s campaign record for 26V701000 lists 13,330 vehicles, one model and one model year, under a defect heading of “Tail Lights May Fail/FMVSS 108.” Standard 108 is the federal rule for lamps, reflective devices and associated equipment, and the text codified at 49 CFR 571.108 reads as a list of things a vehicle must have and a lamp must do. Each vehicle must carry at least the required number of lamps. Each lamp must be activated in the combinations the standard specifies and must be “securely mounted on a rigid part of the vehicle.” Each taillamp must be designed to meet the photometry requirements of Table VIII and the performance requirements of a vibration test.

The sections of the standard read for this article never mention wiring harnesses; they regulate the lamp as installed and operating. A lamp that stays dark when the headlamp switch calls for light fails the activation requirement whatever the cause, which is how a damaged terminal in a harness becomes a standards violation. The filing’s own wording is that the affected Durangos do not comply with FMVSS 108.

A damaged terminal and a lamp that fails without warning

A harness joins each lamp socket to the vehicle’s electrical system through metal terminals crimped onto the wire ends and seated in plastic connector housings. A terminal that is bent, pushed back in its cavity or cracked at the crimp can carry current at first and then lose contact as heat, vibration and road shock work on it. The vibration test written into the taillamp requirements exists because lamps live in that environment. The record says only that terminals “may be damaged.” It does not say when in the build the damage occurs, how, or whether one lamp, both, or the brake and turn functions are involved.

One thing an owner letter must address under 49 CFR 577.5 is whether a crash can occur without warning. Because the filing cites FMVSS 108, the same section calls for the letter to state that the vehicles fail to meet a specified federal standard. For a failed tail lamp the warning question answers itself: the driver sees the instrument cluster and the road ahead, not the back of the vehicle, and an intermittent fault can show normal lighting in the driveway and fail at speed. Whether the Durango alerts its driver to a bulb or circuit fault is not stated in the record.

Dark at speed, from the following driver’s seat

NHTSA’s own research on rear signaling puts numbers on what is at stake. A 2003 agency report by Virginia Tech Transportation Institute researchers, Enhanced Rear Lighting and Signaling Systems, estimated 1,848,407 rear-end crashes in 1999, 29.5 percent of all crashes, with 951,822 injuries and 2,195 deaths. Roughly two-thirds involved a stopped or slow lead vehicle, the case a tail lamp exists to flag.

The same report complicates the night-time picture. About 68 percent of rear-end crashes in its data happened in broad daylight and good weather, when rear lighting is least effective, and about 60 percent of daytime rear-end crashes involved a following driver looking away from the lead vehicle. Those are 1999 figures and predate current vehicles, but they suggest a working tail lamp is a weak signal in the day and the principal one after dark. A failed lamp takes away either.

Dealer inspection and the December letter

Because the filing is a stated noncompliance with a federal standard, new Durangos still in dealer stock fall under a sale restriction. NHTSA’s acknowledgment letters recite it, as in a 2019 letter on an unrelated Hyundai campaign: federal law, 49 U.S.C. 30112(a)(3), bars selling or introducing affected vehicles until they are remedied. A Durango sitting unsold on a lot with an unremedied harness cannot legally be delivered.

Dealers will inspect and replace tail light assemblies as necessary, free of charge, according to the open-data record. The phrase “as necessary” implies the inspection comes first and that not all 13,330 Durangos will need new parts. Chrysler’s recall number is A2D, and Chrysler customer service is at 800-853-1403. VINs became searchable on NHTSA.gov on October 29, seven days after the report, and owner letters are expected on December 3, 2026, 42 days after it. NHTSA’s flags for do-not-drive and fire risk while parked are both set to no.

The public record gives no failure rate. The figure 13,330 is the population, not a count of failed lamps, and the document that would carry an estimated defect percentage, a cause and build dates, FCA’s Part 573 report, was not available for this article. How many Durangos have lost a tail light on the road is the number the record leaves open.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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