Ford Explorer, Lincoln Aviator, model years 2025 to 2027. Filed by Ford Motor Company and reported to NHTSA on 21 July 2026. 76,748 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2025-2027 Explorer and Lincoln Aviator vehicles. An unoccupied driver's seat may recline unintentionally during certain scenarios, such as remote unlock or remote start.
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: 26S53. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 26V470 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 26V470 cover?
- Ford Explorer, Lincoln Aviator, model years 2025-2027.
- What is wrong with them?
- Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2025-2027 Explorer and Lincoln Aviator vehicles. An unoccupied driver's seat may recline unintentionally during certain scenarios, such as remote unlock or remote start.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- Unexpected movement of the driver’s seat back may trap a second-row occupant, increasing the risk of injury.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. Dealers will disable the driver seat module (DSM) feature until parts are available. Once available, the motor will be replaced. Repairs will be performed free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed September 3, 2026. 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 26S53, 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 9 Sep 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 3 September 2026. The remedy was reworded on 9 September 2026, 6 days later, so the letter described the earlier version. Read both versions.
What the authority says can happen if this is not fixed: “Unexpected movement of the driver’s seat back may trap a second-row occupant, increasing the risk of injury.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 26V470 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Ford Motor Company |
| System at fault | Seats:Front Assembly:Power Adjust |
| Reported to NHTSA | 21 July 2026 |
| Model years | 2025-2027 |
| Vehicles named | FORD EXPLORER, LINCOLN AVIATOR |
What the notice says today
The defect
Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2025-2027 Explorer and Lincoln Aviator vehicles. An unoccupied driver's seat may recline unintentionally during certain scenarios, such as remote unlock or remote start.
The consequence
Unexpected movement of the driver’s seat back may trap a second-row occupant, increasing the risk of injury.
The remedy
Dealers will disable the driver seat module (DSM) feature until parts are available. Once available, the motor will be replaced. Repairs will be performed free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed September 3, 2026. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 26S53.
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
6 words added, 28 removed. The notice grew from 458 to 328 characters.
Dealers will disable the driver seat module (DSM) feature until parts are available. Once available, the motor will be replaced. Repairs will be performed free of charge. Interim letters, notifying owners of the safety risk, are expected to be mailed August 31, 2026. Additional letters will be sent once the 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 26S53.
Dealers will disable the driver seat module (DSM) feature until parts are available. Once available, the motor will be replaced. Repairs will be performed free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed September 3, 2026. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 26S53.
The summary was rewritten
1 words added, 1 removed. The notice grew from 216 to 216 characters.
Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2026-2027 Explorer and Lincoln Aviator vehicles. An unoccupied driver's seat may recline unintentionally during certain scenarios, such as remote unlock or remote start.
Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2025-2027 Explorer and Lincoln Aviator vehicles. An unoccupied driver's seat may recline unintentionally during certain scenarios, such as remote unlock or remote start.
The remedy was rewritten
55 words added, 12 removed. The notice grew from 197 to 458 characters.
The remedy is currently under development. The owner notification schedule has not been provided. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 26S53.
Dealers will disable the driver seat module (DSM) feature until parts are available. Once available, the motor will be replaced. Repairs will be performed free of charge. Interim letters, notifying owners of the safety risk, are expected to be mailed August 31, 2026. Additional letters will be sent once the 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 26S53.
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 2026340, recorded 14 July 2026 (7 days before the American filing)
Matched on 26S53, 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 26V470, wording as read on 17 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/26v470/
The copy quoted above hashes to 0d9384b070aadb37a8034b7874883f7b…. 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 26V470 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
0df86088 - Consequence
5c589434 - Remedy
34ae24e9
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 26V470 · 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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