Recall Date: 8/25/2026
NHTSA ID: 26V548
Mfr. Campaign Number: 26S61
Manufacturer: Ford Motor Company
Affected Components: 1.5L and 2.3L pistons (part numbers PV4E-6K100-CA and PB5E-6K100-AB)
Potential Number of Units Affected: 10,001
The recall spans five nameplates built off related engine families:
Ford traced the population to specific pistons rather than a broad production window, which is why the numbers land so precisely: 5,199 Bronco Sport, 3,071 Explorer, 1,062 Bronco, 432 Ranger, and 237 Mustang, all built between February and April 2026. Bronco Sport vehicles carry the suspect 1.5L engine, while the other four nameplates carry the 2.3L version. Ford estimates the defect actually appears in about 0.5 percent of the population, but because a piston failure can strand a vehicle with no warning, the automaker is inspecting the full population rather than guessing which units are affected.
The defect sits at the piston dome, where a Nickel-resistant insert bonds to the piston's aluminum body. On affected units, that bond can crack, and the crack can progress to a full piston dome failure. A failed piston dome means a loss of motive power, and depending on how far the failure has progressed, a driver may notice a Check Engine light, unusual engine noise, or a misfire before it gets that far.
The remedy starts with an inspection. Ford dealers will check the engine for cracked pistons, and any engine that fails will get a full long block replacement, at no cost to the owner either way. Owners are not required to park the vehicle or avoid driving while they wait for their appointment. Dealers were notified on August 28, 2026, interim owner letters go out between September 4 and September 11, and remedy owner notifications are expected to run from December 21 through December 31, 2026, once parts supply catches up with inspection volume. VINs became searchable at NHTSA.gov/recalls on August 28.
Ford found this one the way most piston recalls get found, inside its own plants, before it became a field problem at scale. An Explorer failed an end-of-line test at Chicago Assembly on March 18, 2026, and five Bronco Sport engines failed the same kind of test at Hermosillo nine days later. Teardown on both pointed to the same piston dome crack. It took until April 9 for Ford and its piston supplier to replicate the failure and trace it to a loosened lock nut on a machining tool that intermittently struck the piston's Ni-Ring insert during production.
The investigation also turned up a detection gap. Between January 26 and March 6, 2026, the ultrasonic crack detector on the affected line couldn't catch the defect, because a sensor had been swapped without updating the device's parameters to match. By mid-August, Ford had counted 38 engine failures inside its own plants and 13 more that reached the field. Ford is not aware of any related accidents or injuries, but a defect that produces a two-month blind spot in a supplier's own inspection process is the kind of finding that tends to widen a recall's scope before it narrows.
Five nameplates and one root cause means this campaign's 10,001 vehicles are scattered thin across a lot of individual dealer rosters, which makes it easy for any single store to underestimate how many affected VINs actually sit in its own database. BizzyCar's Recall Outreach product pulls live NHTSA recall data against a dealer's customer records automatically, so Bronco, Explorer, Mustang, Ranger, and Bronco Sport owners all get identified and contacted without someone manually cross-checking five separate model lists.
Explorer and Ranger both see heavy fleet use, and fleet vehicles are notoriously easy for a recall notice to miss. BizzyCar's Fleet IQ surfaces exactly those vehicles for dealers managing commercial accounts. For more on how recall volume is trending industry-wide, read BizzyCar's latest Quarterly Recall Report, or schedule a demo to see Recall Outreach in action.