Parking issues have resulted in a safety recall of more than 270,000 Ford vehicles, including F-150 Lightning BEV, Mustang Mach-E and Maverick vehicles. Notification letters should be going out early next year.
According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall report, Ford’s Cuautitlan Assembly Plant (CSAP) identified a Mach-E vehicle with Diagnostic Trouble Code (DTC) on July 14 of this year.
“This DTC is set when a vehicle does not mechanically achieve Park within 2.9 seconds of the driver commanding it,” the NHTSA explained. “The unable to engage park condition on this vehicle did not persist after the operator shifted the vehicle again from drive to park. The CSAP team removed the [integrated park module] IPM from this vehicle, and it was shipped to the Tier-1 IPM supplier for teardown analysis.”
Around a week later, Ford’s Critical Concern Review Group (CCRG) opened an investigation into the concern. When the Tier-1 supplier did a teardown of the returned IPM, it did not identify any evidence of a mechanical issue and all components of the IPM were found to be within specification.
“These findings, and a lack of similar occurrences on Maverick Hybrid and F-150 Lightning vehicles, which utilize similar IPMs led the Electrical Transaxle team to believe the issue may be related to electrical or software system interactions unique to Mach-E,” said the NHTSA.
However, issues with additional Mach-E vehicles continued to pop up over the following months. In October, further testing was conducted and a Maverick Hybrid vehicle was identified with a similar problem.
“An X-ray of a transmission removed from the vehicle showed the IPM pawl physically bound with the IPM slider,” the NHTSA said. “Based on this finding, Ford’s Electrical Trans Axle Engineering team began a series of dynamic modeling simulations to identify conditions that could lead to the binding observed. This simulation subsequently identified the potential for binding depending on the coefficient of friction between the surfaces.”
Enhanced vehicle screening was then implemented in November. Earlier this month, Ford’s Field Review Committee reviewed the concern and approved a field action.
“Ford is not aware of any reports of accident or injury related to this condition,” the NHTSA noted.
Per the Dec. 12 recall notice, the issue does come with a vehicle rollaway risk and risk of crash due to the loss of park function related to the power train.
“The integrated park module may fail to lock into the park position when the driver shifts into park,” the NHTSA explained. “As such, these vehicles fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) number 114, ‘Theft Protection and Rollaway Prevention.’”
Overall, 272,645 vehicles are impacted, including 80,468 2025-2026 Ford Maverick vehicles, 104,113 2022-2026 F-150 Lightning BEV vehicles and 88,064 2024-2026 Mustang Mach-E vehicles.
To fix the issue, park module software must be updated over-the-air (OTA) or by a dealer. This remedy will be provided free of charge.
Interim letters notifying owners of the safety risk are expected to be mailed on Feb. 2. Follow-up letters about the remedy are expected in February as well, while notifications to dealers are expected to go out in January.
“Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332.
Ford’s number for this recall is 25C69. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) involved in this recall will be searchable on NHTSA.gov beginning Jan. 26, 2026,” said the NHTSA.