Ford Bronco Sport, Ford Maverick, model years 2021 to 2026. Filed by Ford Motor Company and reported to NHTSA on 27 May 2026. 4,653 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2021-2026 Bronco Sport and 2022-2026 Maverick vehicles. The front lower control arm ball joints may have been incorrectly installed or incorrectly repaired at the vehicle assembly plant, allowing the control arm to disconnect from the front wheel knuckle.
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: 26S36. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 26V340 is the number NHTSA gave the same campaign, and the number this page is filed under. They are one recall, written two ways.
This is one of the small number of campaigns where owners are told not to drive the vehicle at all until it is repaired.
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 26V340 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Ford Motor Company |
| System at fault | Suspension:Front:Control Arm:Lower Ball Joint |
| Reported to NHTSA | 27 May 2026 |
| Model years | 2021-2026 |
| Vehicles named | FORD BRONCO SPORT, FORD MAVERICK |
This is not an ordinary campaign.
- Owners are told not to drive the vehicle at all. NHTSA applies this to a small minority of campaigns. 28 of the 1,399 we currently hold.
What the notice says today
The defect
Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2021-2026 Bronco Sport and 2022-2026 Maverick vehicles. The front lower control arm ball joints may have been incorrectly installed or incorrectly repaired at the vehicle assembly plant, allowing the control arm to disconnect from the front wheel knuckle.
The consequence
A detached control arm can cause a loss of vehicle control, increasing the risk of a crash.
The remedy
Owners are advised not to drive their vehicles until the remedy is completed. Dealers will inspect and repair the front lower control arm ball joints as necessary, free of charge.Owner notification letters were mailed September 2, 2026. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 26S36. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) involved in this recall became searchable on NHTSA.gov on May 29, 2026.
What it said before
This notice has been edited since it was first published. NHTSA shows only the current version. Both are below, read straight from the agency at the times shown, with the words that moved marked.
The remedy was rewritten
5 words added, 21 removed. The notice grew from 531 to 446 characters.
Owners are advised not to drive their vehicles until the remedy is completed. Dealers will inspect and repair the front lower control arm ball joints as necessary, free of charge. Interim letters, notifying owners of the safety risk, were mailed June 4, 2026. Additional letters will be sent once the remedy is available. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 26S36. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) involved in this recall became searchable on NHTSA.gov on May 29, 2026.
Owners are advised not to drive their vehicles until the remedy is completed. Dealers will inspect and repair the front lower control arm ball joints as necessary, free of charge.Owner notification letters were mailed September 2, 2026. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 26S36. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) involved in this recall became searchable on NHTSA.gov on May 29, 2026.
Nothing above is our paraphrase. Both columns are the agency’s own text; only the marking is ours.
This is one of 730 notices in the record whose component field names suspension. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 33 days.
Last checked . The remedy was last reworded on , and both versions are held.
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 2026259, recorded 27 May 2026
Matched on 26S36, 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 26V340, wording as read on 9 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/26v340/
The copy quoted above hashes to cde4552fc739f2a1c2db99da754b97c6…. 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
- 26V550: 2026 Maverick, F-150, and Bronco Sport
- 26V548: 2026 Explorer, Bronco, Bronco Sport, Mustang, and Ranger
- 26V547: 2024-2026 Mustang
- 26V532: 2026 Explorer
- 26V489: 2021-2023 F-150 and 2023-2026 F-250 SD
- 26V487: 2023-2025 Mustang Mach E
- 26V470: 2026-2027 Explorer and Lincoln Aviator
- 26V468: 2021-2026 Bronco and Bronco Raptor
All 772 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 26V340 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
24a77048 - Consequence
dcfe1552 - Remedy
f681d6f7
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 26V340 · how the whole register is watched
105 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 Bronco Sport, in all seven, is kept on that vehicle's own page, with the newest in each.
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