Ford Just Issued Its 90th Recall This Year. It’ll Cost the Brand Half a Billion Dollars

Ford on Wednesday issued a recall for 694,271 vehicles over potentially leaking fuel injectors. The recall covers 2021-2024 Bronco Sport and 2020-2022 Escape models equipped with Ford’s 1.5-liter three-cylinder engine, and supersedes two previous recalls that attempted to address the issue. Per Reuters (via Automotive News), Ford says the recall will cost around $570 million.

Ford is still working on a final fix for the problem. As an interim solution, it’s rolling out a software update that helps the vehicle detect faulty fuel injectors and take various steps to mitigate fire risk. Owners can have their vehicle software updated at Ford or Lincoln dealers.

The first recall for this issue came in November 2022. It encompassed 521,746 vehicles. Ford’s fix was a software update to detect potentially leaking injectors and a drain tube to get leaking fuel away from the engine. Ford then expanded the recall in March of 2024 to cover an additional 42,652 vehicles, and issued a March 2025 recall for 33,576 of all the affected vehicles for potentially improper recall repairs. 

NHTSA opened a query on the November 2022 and March 2024 recalls in April 2024 because “the remedy program does not address the root cause of the issue and does not proactively call for the replacement of defective fuel injectors prior to their failure,” the agency said. The recall on Wednesday seems to be a result of that NHTSA query, and also expands it to include additional vehicles, including 2024 Bronco Sport models. 

Of the nearly 700,000 vehicles recalled, Ford estimates 0.3% are affected. Ford stopped using the faulty injectors in the Escape in December 2022 and in February 2024 in the Bronco Sport.

Ford leads the industry with 90 recalls in the US so far this year, which Automotive News pointed out is a full-year record for any automaker. A dubious honor to be certain. Stellantis is the next automaker on the recall list for 2025, with 18 this year.