Ford Explorer, Ford Focus, model years 2016 to 2024. Filed by Ford Motor Company and reported to NHTSA on 15 January 2026. 2,403 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2016-2018 Focus, 2019 Explorer, and 2024 Explorer vehicles. The engine block heater may crack and develop a coolant leak, causing it to short circuit when the block heater is plugged in.
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: 25SA4. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 26V012 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 26V012 cover?
- Ford Explorer, Ford Focus, model years 2016-2024.
- What is wrong with them?
- Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2016-2018 Focus, 2019 Explorer, and 2024 Explorer vehicles. The engine block heater may crack and develop a coolant leak, causing it to short circuit when the block heater is plugged in.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- An electrical short circuit can increase the risk of a fire.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Not yet, on the wording NHTSA publishes today. Owners are advised not to plug in their block heater until the vehicle is remedied. Dealers will replace the block heater, free of charge. Owners will also have a alternative option to replace engine block heater element with a threaded blanking plug, and remove the block heater electrical cord.
- 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 25SA4, 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: “An electrical short circuit can increase the risk of a fire.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 26V012 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Ford Motor Company |
| System at fault | Equipment:Electrical:Engine Block Heater |
| Reported to NHTSA | 15 January 2026 |
| Model years | 2016-2024 |
| Vehicles named | FORD EXPLORER, FORD FOCUS |
What the notice says today
The defect
Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2016-2018 Focus, 2019 Explorer, and 2024 Explorer vehicles. The engine block heater may crack and develop a coolant leak, causing it to short circuit when the block heater is plugged in.
The consequence
An electrical short circuit can increase the risk of a fire.
The remedy
Owners are advised not to plug in their block heater until the vehicle is remedied. Dealers will replace the block heater, free of charge. Owners will also have a alternative option to replace engine block heater element with a threaded blanking plug, and remove the block heater electrical cord. Interim letters, notifying owners of the safety risk, were mailed February 13, 2026. Additional letters will be sent once the final remedy is available, anticipated in October 2026. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 25SA4. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) involved in this recall became searchable on NHTSA.gov on January 16, 2026. This recall expands previous recall number 25V685.
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 780eb4eee1c3d2cf58788885373454d9…, so if it is ever edited the change is provable rather than a matter of memory.
This is one of 2,632 notices in the record whose component field names equipment. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 29 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 2025554, recorded 10 October 2025
Matched on 25SA4, 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 26V012, wording as read on 17 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/26v012/
The copy quoted above hashes to 780eb4eee1c3d2cf58788885373454d9…. 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 26V012 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
e49d2ddc - Consequence
c433a597 - Remedy
18d979a2
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 26V012 · how the whole register is watched
245 days after this was filed with the regulator, the register still carries no date for the letter to owners. The sixty days 49 CFR 577.7 allows have passed. A blank there is a gap in the record, which is not the same as a gap in the post: where this maker stands on the sixty days.
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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