Ford Ranger, model years 2004 to 2006. Filed by Ford Motor Company and reported to NHTSA on 25 January 2016. 361,692 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain model year 2004-2006 Ranger vehicles manufactured March 24, 2003, to May 4, 2006. Upon deployment of the driver side frontal air bag, excessive internal pressure may cause the inflator to rupture.
Is your vehicle included? Check with your VIN at NHTSA, or ask a dealer. This page is an independent copy of the notice, kept so you can see what changed after it was published. It is not the authority, and the authority’s own text is the one to act on.
Ford's own number for this recall: 16S03. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 16V036 is the number NHTSA gave the same campaign, and the number this page is filed under. They are one recall, written two ways.
What owners ask about this recall
- Which vehicles does recall 16V036 cover?
- Ford Ranger, model years 2004-2006.
- What is wrong with them?
- Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain model year 2004-2006 Ranger vehicles manufactured March 24, 2003, to May 4, 2006. Upon deployment of the driver side frontal air bag, excessive internal pressure may cause the inflator to rupture.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- In the event of a crash necessitating deployment of the driver's frontal air bag, the inflator could rupture with metal fragments striking the vehicle occupants potentially resulting in serious injury or death.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. Ford will notify owners, and dealers will replace the air bag inflators, free of charge. The recall began February 26, 2016. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 16S03.
- What should I do now?
- Check your own vehicle by its VIN with NHTSA, which is the record to act on. Ford calls this recall 16S03, which is the number on the owner letter and the dealer paperwork.
Answered from the register this site holds. NHTSA is the record to act on.
What the authority says can happen if this is not fixed: “In the event of a crash necessitating deployment of the driver's frontal air bag, the inflator could rupture with metal fragments striking the vehicle occupants potentially resulting in serious injury or death.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 16V036 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Ford Motor Company |
| System at fault | Air Bags:Frontal:Driver Side:Inflator Module |
| Reported to NHTSA | 25 January 2016 |
| Model years | 2004-2006 |
| Vehicles named | FORD RANGER |
What the notice says today
The consequence
In the event of a crash necessitating deployment of the driver's frontal air bag, the inflator could rupture with metal fragments striking the vehicle occupants potentially resulting in serious injury or death.
The remedy
Ford will notify owners, and dealers will replace the air bag inflators, free of charge. The recall began February 26, 2016. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 16S03. Note: This recall supersedes 14V-343 and only applies to Rangers manufactured in North America.
What it said before
This campaign is in the register but not yet in the dated wording archive, so we cannot yet say whether its text has moved. It enters the archive on the next pass.
This is one of 846 notices in the record whose component field names air bags. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 46 days.
Last checked . No change has been recorded in the wording.
The same recall in other countries
This campaign carries a manufacturer code that also appears in another country’s register, which means the same defect was recalled there too.
- Canada: Transport Canada recall 2016033, recorded 25 January 2016 (within a week of the American filing)
Matched on 16S03, the manufacturer’s own number for this campaign, which is the only field the registers share. Exact match, nothing paired on brand and date. The two dates are adjacent instruments rather than the same one, so a difference of a day or two means nothing.
How often the two countries file on the same day · The European alerts
The models named here, across their whole recall history
How to cite this record
Quoting the wording on this page means quoting a version, so the date belongs in the citation:
CarsMultiverse, recall 16V036, wording as read on 16 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/16v036/
The cross-border matches used on this site are deposited as a citable dataset: doi:10.5281/zenodo.22087136. The recall wording itself is published by the national authority named above and is theirs, not ours.
The recall record and its wording are published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and are US Government public domain. The dated archive, the comparison and any before-and-after above are CarsMultiverse. How fresh every engine behind this page is, is public on the status page. To check a specific vehicle, use NHTSA’s own VIN lookup.
Other Ford notices we hold
- 26V579: 2026-2027 Transit
- 26V578: 2023-2027 F-150
- 26V577: 2026 F-150
- 26V576: 2026 F-150
- 26V550: 2026 Maverick, F-150, and Bronco Sport
- 26V548: 2026 Explorer, Bronco, Bronco Sport, Mustang, and Ranger
- 26V547: 2024-2026 Mustang
- 26V532: 2026 Explorer
All 776 Ford campaigns we hold · Every manufacturer in the record
The fingerprint of this notice
We take a SHA-256 of each of the three blocks of text the authority publishes and keep the first eight characters. As we last read campaign 16V036 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
0f06d1b7 - Consequence
dea246b8 - Remedy
3743832f
We first read this notice on 21 August 2026. It has not moved since. If it ever does, these characters will not match, and the change will be dated here.
The wording we hold for 16V036 · how the whole register is watched
This notice names one vehicle among several registers that have written about it. Every notice this site holds for the Ford Ranger, in all seven, is kept on that vehicle's own page, with the newest in each.
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Owners of these cars
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