Recall · 26V121000
Ford Motor recalled the FORD Explorer over exterior lighting
35,772
Vehicles covered
1
Model
2
Model years
March 3, 2026
Filed with NHTSA
EXTERIOR LIGHTING:HEADLIGHTS
- The defect
- Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2025-2026 Explorer vehicles. The Dynamic Bending Light (DBL) system software may cause the passenger-side headlight to turn in the wrong direction when driving through curves in the road. As such, these vehicles fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard number 108, " Lamps, Reflective Devices, and Associated Equipment."
- What it can cause
- A headlight that turns incorrectly can result in increased glare to other road users, increasing the risk of a crash.
- What the dealer does
- The headlight control module software will be updated by a dealer, or through an over-the-air (OTA) update, free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed March 23, 2026. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 26C12. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) involved in this recall became searchable on NHTSA.gov on March 5, 2026.
The repair is free, whatever the age or mileage of the vehicle, and whether or not you are the original owner.
Which vehicles
A recall reaches a range of VINs inside these model years, not every car built in them. Yours may not be covered even if it is listed here, and the only way to find out is NHTSA's own VIN lookup .
How this campaign compares
At 35,772 vehicles this is a bigger campaign than 87% of the 19,818 vehicle recalls filed since 1995 whose size NHTSA published. The middle campaign on file covers 472. It covers model years 2025 to 2026, so the oldest vehicles on it were one model year old when the defect was reported to NHTSA.
Ford vehicles have been recalled over the exterior lighting 55 times before this, most recently in January 2026 as 26V025000. That is not evidence the earlier repair failed.
This site holds the complaint record for all 2 model years the campaign names. Their owners have filed 124 complaints with NHTSA, 58 of them before this campaign was filed. 3 of those name the exterior lighting, the system this recall is about — a count of complaints, not of this defect. The earliest of them reached NHTSA in October 2024, 1 year before this filing.
The vehicles on this campaign carry 26 other recalls published here, the newest being: 26V581000 (air bags), 26V548000 (engine and engine cooling), 26V532000 (engine and engine cooling), 26V470000 (seats).
Check your own car
A VIN check is the only answer for a specific vehicle, and it also shows every other open recall on it, which is usually the reason it is worth doing rather than reading one campaign.
Filed by Ford Motor Company with NHTSA on March 3, 2026 as campaign 26V121000. Every word of the defect, consequence and remedy above is NHTSA's published record of that filing, not a summary of it.
Compiled and maintained by guarledes . Data last checked 2026-03-03.
Independent developer and analyst