Ford must recall 462,000 vehicles worldwide for a backup camera issue that has allegedly been linked to 17 minor crashes and resulted in 2,115 warranty reports as of November 30, 2022.
The issue is related to the 2020-2023 Ford Explorer and Lincoln Aviator, as well as the 2020-2022 Lincoln Corsair. In all, Ford says that there are 382,759 vehicles affected by this issue in the United States, and they may need to be repaired even if they have already received a recall fix for a similar issue.
The vehicles are being recalled because of a problem with one or more of the 360-degree vision cameras. Specifically, drivers may lose the feed from their vehicle’s rear-facing camera during key moments.
For the driver, that looks like a blue screen where the video feed from the affected camera’s portion of the infotainment screen should be. If that occurs while the vehicle is reversing, it can, and allegedly has led to accidents.
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Ford first became aware of this issue in October 2021, shortly after it issued another recall for a similar error. By January 2022, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had provided the automaker with more evidence suggesting that the camera feed could fail even on vehicles that had been repaired in the initial recall.
The automaker claims that its investigation into the issue was complicated by the discovery that there were, in fact, two failure modes (one in which the entire camera screen went blue, and another in which only the rearward facing portion of the feed went blue) that resulted in similar complaints from customers.
By December 2022, the automaker started noticing increasing warranty claims revolving around the backup camera, which led it to issue a stop-ship on the Explorer, Aviator, and Corsair.
Despite the large number of claims, and the 17 minor crashes that were allegedly linked to the issue, Ford says that it is not aware of any injuries stemming from it. Now, it says that it has a solution for the issue, that will involve updating the software for the image processing module at no charge to the customers. Owners will have to bring their vehicles into the dealership to have the update installed, though. Ford will start getting in touch with them on February 20.
