Recall · 26V159000
Ford Motor recalled 2 models over seat belts
561
Vehicles covered
2
Models
14
Model years
March 17, 2026
Filed with NHTSA
SEAT BELTS
- The defect
- Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2020-2026 Explorer and Lincoln Aviator vehicles. The seat belt anchor bolts at the second-row outer seating positions may be improperly secured.
- What it can cause
- A loose seat belt buckle may not properly restrain an occupant during a crash, increasing the risk of injury.
- What the dealer does
- Dealers will inspect the second-row outer seat belt lower anchor bolts and replace or repair them as necessary, free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed March 30, 2026. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 26C18. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) involved in this recall became searchable on NHTSA.gov on March 19, 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 561 vehicles this is a bigger campaign than 52% of the 19,818 vehicle recalls filed since 1995 whose size NHTSA published. The middle campaign on file covers 472. It covers model years 2020 to 2026, so the oldest vehicles on it were 6 model years old when the defect was reported to NHTSA.
Ford vehicles have been recalled over the seat belts 45 times before this, most recently in December 2025 as 25V862000. That is not evidence the earlier repair failed.
This site holds the complaint record for 13 of the 14 model years the campaign names. Their owners have filed 2,348 complaints with NHTSA, 1,905 of them before this campaign was filed. 37 of those name the seat belts, the system this recall is about — a count of complaints, not of this defect. The earliest of them reached NHTSA in November 2019, 6 years before this filing.
The vehicles on this campaign carry 77 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 17, 2026 as campaign 26V159000. 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 2026-03-17.
Independent developer and analyst