Ford issued new recall campaigns for its compact Maverick and half-ton F-150 trucks.
As of this week, owners will want to keep their eyes out for manufacturer letters about recalls impacting two of Ford’s most popular models. The larger of the two campaigns addresses a software issue affecting rear camera functionality on 2022-2024 Mavericks, while the smaller recall only affects parking lamps on F-150s built for the 2022 model year.
A notification Ford sent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) documents the potential for the Maverick’s rear-view camera display to freeze up while the vehicle is in reverse. In all, Ford says the problem affects 144,516 units built between February 3, 2021 and November 28, 2023. These trucks have Ford’s “Connected Touch Radios” (CTR) software installed. Specifically, the automaker says, “An improper memory handling within [the] CTR software is causing a component in the end-to-end rear-view camera image processing path to fail.”
That sort of failure may result in a false representation of where the truck actually is relative to its surroundings, increasing the risk of a crash. The NHTSA initially contacted Ford about the alleged issue back in June, after customers filed complaints with the agency about their camera images freezing while vehicles were in reverse. Four Vehicle Owner’s Questionnaires (VOQs) were forward to Ford associated with the concern. Ford’s own investigation identified an additional 26 claims on 2022-2024 Maverick models.
Between September 30 and October 4, 2024, Ford will notify impacted Maverick owners about the problem. It notified dealers on September 16.
Fortunately, the issue is fixable with a software update. Several revisions of the Connected Touch Radio software will be updated with the latest version, patching the memory leak that causes the rear-view camera image to freeze in the first place. To-date, Ford says it is aware of two accidents possibly related to the problem, but no injuries or fatalities.
The F-150 recall addresses flicking parking lights.
Ford’s second recall addresses a specific issue with the 2022 F-150. The problem affects a substantially smaller number of trucks — just 16,543 — which is fairly minor given the truck’s immense popularity that continues with the fourteenth-generation models.
In reviewing repair records and over-the-air deployment records, Ford narrowed down an issue where the parking lamps may flicker in a few different scenarios after it attempted to update the trucks’ Body Control Module (BCM) software to address the same root issue in 2022 (22C22/22V-686). Ford says the problem could crop up when the customer selects the “Position Lamp On” mode; when they select “Headlamp On” mode; or when they are driving at night in “Automatic” mode, where the ambient light is low enough to trigger the parking lamp and headlight functions.
Technically, parking light flickering knocks these particular F-150 trucks out of compliance with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, which dictate the lights must be “steady burning” for safety. Flickering or completely inoperable lights could increase the risk of an accident.
Ford says it is aware of 368 reports related to flickering parking lights, dating as far back as April 18 of this year. It is not aware of any injuries or accidents related to the problem.
This time, Ford will notify owners by mail between October 7 and October 11 to bring their trucks into the dealer, where technicians will replace the LED driver module with a new unit (with updated software), at no charge. The new module contains software that bumps up the LED parking lamps’ frequency to 400Hz, rather than 200Hz. That reduces the capacitance (or the amount of charge that can be stored at a given voltage on a capacitor, in this case between 2.95 and 3.14 volts) needed for the lamp to operate. At 200Hz, the capacitance was insufficient, which causes flickering.
