Ford Escape, Ford Transit, model year 2020. Filed by Ford Motor Company and reported to NHTSA on 17 July 2020. 68 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2020 Escape and Transit vehicles. The affected vehicles may have an improperly crimped diffuser in the side curtain air bags which may result in the diffuser detaching from the inflator in the event of an air bag deployment.
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: 20S35. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 20V415 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 20V415 cover?
- Ford Escape, Ford Transit, model year 2020.
- What is wrong with them?
- Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2020 Escape and Transit vehicles. The affected vehicles may have an improperly crimped diffuser in the side curtain air bags which may result in the diffuser detaching from the inflator in the event of an air bag deployment.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- In the event of a crash, if the diffuser detaches from the inflator during air bag deployment, the curtain air bag may not inflate properly, increasing the risk of injury.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Not yet, on the wording NHTSA publishes today. Ford will notify owners, and dealers will replace the side curtain air bag modules, free of charge. An interim letter notifying owners of the safety risk was mailed August 3, 2020. The recall began January 11, 2021. Owners may contact Ford's customer service at 1-866-436-7332.
- 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 20S35, 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, if the diffuser detaches from the inflator during air bag deployment, the curtain air bag may not inflate properly, increasing the risk of injury.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 20V415 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Ford Motor Company |
| System at fault | Air Bags:Side/Window |
| Reported to NHTSA | 17 July 2020 |
| Model years | 2020-2020 |
| Vehicles named | FORD ESCAPE, FORD TRANSIT |
What the notice says today
The consequence
In the event of a crash, if the diffuser detaches from the inflator during air bag deployment, the curtain air bag may not inflate properly, increasing the risk of injury.
The remedy
Ford will notify owners, and dealers will replace the side curtain air bag modules, free of charge. An interim letter notifying owners of the safety risk was mailed August 3, 2020. The recall began January 11, 2021. Owners may contact Ford's customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 20S35.
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 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 20V415, wording as read on 16 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/20v415/
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 20V415 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
3bb2d6f4 - Consequence
470d45dd - Remedy
b298cf30
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 20V415 · 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 Transit, in all seven, is kept on that vehicle's own page, with the newest in each.
Put this notice on your site
A small badge that links here and names the register's reference. It costs one line of HTML and needs no key.
The badge is free to use. It links to this page and nowhere else, and it never shows advertising.
Owners of these cars
No register publishes what happens after the letter. Owners do: tell us, in two taps.
Anonymous: no account, no cookie, nothing you type is stored beyond these choices. Figures appear once 3 owners have answered, and are published with the record under CC BY 4.0.