Ford Explorer, Lincoln Aviator, model years 2020 to 2027. Filed by Ford Motor Company and reported to NHTSA on 14 July 2026. 387,911 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2020-2027 Aviator and 2020-2026 Explorer vehicles. The switch for the easy-entry second-row outer seats may bind or stick, resulting in the seats unlatching, tipping, or sliding unexpectedly.
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: 26S52. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 26V451 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 26V451 cover?
- Ford Explorer, Lincoln Aviator, model years 2020-2027.
- What is wrong with them?
- Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2020-2027 Aviator and 2020-2026 Explorer vehicles. The switch for the easy-entry second-row outer seats may bind or stick, resulting in the seats unlatching, tipping, or sliding unexpectedly.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- A seat that moves unexpectedly may not properly restrain an occupant during a crash, increasing the risk of injury.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Not yet, on the wording NHTSA publishes today. Dealers will inspect and replace the bezel around the switch as necessary, free of charge. This will be a phased campaign, with the remedy becoming available in different phases based on model and model years. Interim letters explaining the safety risk were mailed August 19, 2026.
- 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 26S52, which is the number on the owner letter and the dealer paperwork.
- Has this notice changed since it was announced?
- Yes. The remedy was reworded on 27 Aug 2026. Both versions are on this page, with the date each was read.
Answered from the register this site holds. NHTSA is the record to act on.
Owners of this vehicle were written to on 21 August 2026. The remedy was reworded on 27 August 2026, 6 days later, so the letter described the earlier version. Read both versions.
Owners of this vehicle were written to on 21 August 2026. The remedy was reworded on 25 August 2026, 4 days later, so the letter described the earlier version. Read both versions.
What the authority says can happen if this is not fixed: “A seat that moves unexpectedly may not properly restrain an occupant during a crash, increasing the risk of injury.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 26V451 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Ford Motor Company |
| System at fault | Seats:Mid/Rear Assembly |
| Reported to NHTSA | 14 July 2026 |
| Model years | 2020-2027 |
| Vehicles named | FORD EXPLORER, LINCOLN AVIATOR |
What the notice says today
The defect
Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2020-2027 Aviator and 2020-2026 Explorer vehicles. The switch for the easy-entry second-row outer seats may bind or stick, resulting in the seats unlatching, tipping, or sliding unexpectedly.
The consequence
A seat that moves unexpectedly may not properly restrain an occupant during a crash, increasing the risk of injury.
The remedy
Dealers will inspect and replace the bezel around the switch as necessary, free of charge. This will be a phased campaign, with the remedy becoming available in different phases based on model and model years. Interim letters explaining the safety risk were mailed August 19, 2026. Additional letters will be sent once the remedy is available, anticipated in January 2027. Lincoln Aviator owner notification letters were mailed August 21, 2026. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 26S52. This recall expands Recall 25V393. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) involved in this recall became searchable on NHTSA.gov on July 16, 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
20 words added, 0 removed. The notice grew from 571 to 690 characters.
Dealers will inspect and replace the bezel around the switch as necessary, free of charge. Interim letters explaining the safety risk were mailed August 19, 2026. Additional letters will be sent once the remedy is available, anticipated in January 2027. Lincoln Aviator owner notification letters were mailed August 21, 2026. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 26S52. This recall expands Recall 25V393. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) involved in this recall became searchable on NHTSA.gov on July 16, 2026.
Dealers will inspect and replace the bezel around the switch as necessary, free of charge. This will be a phased campaign, with the remedy becoming available in different phases based on model and model years. Interim letters explaining the safety risk were mailed August 19, 2026. Additional letters will be sent once the remedy is available, anticipated in January 2027. Lincoln Aviator owner notification letters were mailed August 21, 2026. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 26S52. This recall expands Recall 25V393. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) involved in this recall became searchable on NHTSA.gov on July 16, 2026.
The remedy was rewritten
13 words added, 6 removed. The notice grew from 511 to 571 characters.
Dealers will inspect and replace the bezel around the switch as necessary, free of charge. Interim letters explaining the safety risk are expected to be mailed July 27, 2026. Additional letters will be sent once the remedy is available, anticipated in January 2027. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 26S52. This recall expands Recall 25V393. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) involved in this recall became searchable on NHTSA.gov on July 16, 2026.
Dealers will inspect and replace the bezel around the switch as necessary, free of charge. Interim letters explaining the safety risk were mailed August 19, 2026. Additional letters will be sent once the remedy is available, anticipated in January 2027. Lincoln Aviator owner notification letters were mailed August 21, 2026. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 26S52. This recall expands Recall 25V393. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) involved in this recall became searchable on NHTSA.gov on July 16, 2026.
Nothing above is our paraphrase. Both columns are the agency’s own text; only the marking is ours.
This is one of 459 notices in the record whose component field names seats. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 44 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 2026339, recorded 14 July 2026 (within a week of the American filing)
Matched on 26S52, 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 26V451, wording as read on 17 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/26v451/
The copy quoted above hashes to 4040ab783f13c1acf467c96509a10884…. 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 26V451 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
f02993e2 - Consequence
6cbc3e3e - Remedy
dbef0813
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 26V451 · 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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