2025-2026 Ford Maverick Recall: 7K Instrument Panel May Detach During Crash

A recall for almost 7,000 2025-2026 Ford Maverick vehicles has been announced. An instrument panel may detach during a crash, increasing risk of injury to occupants.

The NHTSA is reporting a recall on 6,897 Ford Mavericks from the 2025 and 2026 model years. The potentially affected vehicles have an instrument panel that may detach when the air bags are deployed, potentially causing injuries to any occupants of the vehicle. The fault, caused by insufficient weld adhesion to the airbag assembly, is thought to affect 1% of vehicles from those model years.

Ford is advising owners that information on whether their vehicle is affected is best obtained by either calling Ford’s toll-free line (1-866-436-7332) or by contacting a local Ford or Lincoln dealer who can obtain specific information regarding the vehicles from Ford’s in-house database.

Here’s the relevant information from the NHTSA recall notice:

NHTSA ID Number: 25V884

Manufacturer: Ford Motor Company

Components: Instrument Panel Topper

Potential Number of Units Affected: 6,897

Estimated percentage with defect: 1%

Descriptive Information:

A part of the instrument panel topper that detaches during deployment may strike a vehicle occupant,
increasing the risk of injury during a crash.

Certain instrument panel topper assemblies were manufactured by the instrument panel supplier with
insufficient vibration weld adhesion between the passenger air bag chute doors and the instrument
panel topper. This insufficient adhesion results from the interaction of three factors: 1) high part
temperatures during welding due to high ambient temperatures at the supplier’s facility, 2) a temporary
reduction in hydraulic clamp force and/or vibration welding amplitude as a result of power fluctuations
at the supplier’s facility, and 3) mis-installation/misalignment of a friction mat the instrument topper
panel is placed on during welding.

Identification of any warning that can occur: None

Remedy Type: Replace

Owners will be notified by mail and instructed to take their vehicle to a Ford or Lincoln dealer to have
the instrument panel topper replaced. There will be no charge for this service.

Chronology:

On October 15th, 2025, during a Ford-internal test of a 2025 Ford Maverick, the occupant-facing
passenger instrument panel door of the front passenger air bag (PAB) detached from the airbag chute
door during deployment. The instrument panel topper and air bag chute are separate components from
the passenger air bag module.

On October 28th, 2025, Ford’s Critical Concern Review Group opened an investigation into this issue.
From October through November 2025, Ford and the Tier-1 instrument panel topper supplier reviewed
supplier control plan measurements, preventative maintenance logs, welding machine calibration and
fault data, operator work instructions, and environmental factors at the supplier’s facility to identify
potential root cause contributing factors. Additionally, the investigation team conducted multiple Design
of Experiments (DOE) studies to understand the effects of these factors and their interactions. Based
on learnings from these studies, Ford and the supplier were able to create a part that resembled the
initial occurrence. Based on this determination of root cause, a suspect population was identified.

On December 11th, 2025, Ford’s Field Review Committee reviewed the concern and approved a field
action.

As of December 17th, 2025, Ford is aware of no additional occurrences of air bag door detachment. Ford is not aware of any accidents or injuries related to this issue.

For more information, and to see if your vehicle is affected, visit NHTSA.gov.