Ford Explorer, Lincoln Aviator, model years 2020 to 2022. Filed by Ford Motor Company and reported to NHTSA on 8 September 2023. 2,954 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2020-2022 Lincoln Aviator and Ford Explorer vehicles equipped with 3.0L PHEV engines. A manufacturing defect in one or more of the high voltage battery cells may result in an internal short circuit and battery failure.
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: 23S53. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 23V626 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 23V626 cover?
- Ford Explorer, Lincoln Aviator, model years 2020-2022.
- What is wrong with them?
- Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2020-2022 Lincoln Aviator and Ford Explorer vehicles equipped with 3.0L PHEV engines. A manufacturing defect in one or more of the high voltage battery cells may result in an internal short circuit and battery failure.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- Battery failure can cause a loss of drive power, increasing the risk of a crash. Battery failure can also increase the risk of a fire.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. Dealers will perform a Battery Energy Control Module (BECM) diagnostic test and replace the high voltage battery pack, as necessary, free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed on April 8, 2024. Owners may contact Ford 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 23S53, 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: “Battery failure can cause a loss of drive power, increasing the risk of a crash. Battery failure can also increase the risk of a fire.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 23V626 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Ford Motor Company |
| System at fault | Electrical System:Propulsion System:Traction Battery |
| Reported to NHTSA | 8 September 2023 |
| Model years | 2020-2022 |
| Vehicles named | FORD EXPLORER, LINCOLN AVIATOR |
What the notice says today
The defect
Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2020-2022 Lincoln Aviator and Ford Explorer vehicles equipped with 3.0L PHEV engines. A manufacturing defect in one or more of the high voltage battery cells may result in an internal short circuit and battery failure.
The consequence
Battery failure can cause a loss of drive power, increasing the risk of a crash. Battery failure can also increase the risk of a fire.
The remedy
Dealers will perform a Battery Energy Control Module (BECM) diagnostic test and replace the high voltage battery pack, as necessary, free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed on April 8, 2024. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford Motor Company's number for this recall is 23S53.
What it said before
Nothing has changed while we have been watching. We last read the wording of this campaign on 17 September 2026, and it matched the copy we already held.
That copy hashes to 07652a9b5c64ff488a7aa621f270214e…, so if it is ever edited the change is provable rather than a matter of memory.
This is one of 1,836 notices in the record whose component field names electrical system. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 41 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 2023507, recorded 12 September 2023 (within a week of the American filing)
- European Union: Safety Gate alert A12/02543/23, published 20 October 2023, raised by Germany (the Commission’s own page) (42 days after the American filing)
Matched on 23S53, 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 23V626, wording as read on 17 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/23v626/
The copy quoted above hashes to 07652a9b5c64ff488a7aa621f270214e…. If the notice is reworded later, that fingerprint will not match, which is how a reader checks that the quotation was of the version we say it was.
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 23V626 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
19cd7d20 - Consequence
54b8acb0 - Remedy
44a0c0c4
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 23V626 · 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 Explorer, 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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