Ford Recalls 47,587 F-150 and F-250 Trucks Over a Rearview Camera Glitch

• Ford has recalled 47,587 F-150 and F-250 Super Duty trucks after a software bug lets the infotainment menu block the rearview camera image in reverse.
• Owners can check their vehicle identification number at NHTSA.gov right now, and Ford plans an over-the-air fix along with dealer visits starting this month.
• The recall lands inside Ford’s biggest recall year on record, with more than 10 million vehicles pulled back across 37 separate campaigns in 2026.

A blocked screen at the worst possible moment

Ford owners backing out of a driveway or a crowded parking lot rely on that rearview camera to catch a child, a shopping cart, or a low curb their mirrors miss. For 47,587 F-150 and Super Duty F-250 drivers, that camera can go dark at the worst possible moment. A software glitch identified by Ford engineers lets the infotainment system’s home screen menu stay stuck on top of the camera feed once a driver shifts into reverse, cutting off the one tool built to prevent a backover crash.

The recall covers model-year 2021 to 2023 F-150 pickups and model-year 2023 to 2026 F-250 Super Duty trucks fitted with an 8-inch Sync infotainment screen. Roughly half the recall population is F-150s built between January 30, 2020 and December 22, 2023; the remaining 23,179 trucks are F-250 Super Duty models assembled between March 16, 2022 and June 1, 2026, according to Ford’s filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

How the defect actually shows up

Ford’s engineers traced the fault to a specific sequence of driver actions. If a driver manually opens a camera view while the truck sits in park or drive, then opens the camera menu again without picking anything, and then shifts into reverse, the menu fails to close itself. It stays layered over part of the reversing image, cutting off the view a driver needs to spot a person, a pet, or an obstacle behind the truck. Ford has not linked the defect to any confirmed crash or injury reports, but the company classified it as a safety recall under federal rules that require a backup camera image to display in reverse.

Interim owner notification letters went out between August 17 and August 21, alerting owners to the issue before a permanent fix exists. Ford told regulators it plans a second round of letters once the software patch is ready, with remedy notifications expected between September 21 and October 23. Dealers will install an updated accessory protocol interface module at no cost, and Ford said much of the fix can arrive as an over-the-air update rather than requiring a service appointment.

What F-150 and Super Duty owners should do now

Owners do not need to wait for a letter to check their status. Ford’s recall reference number for this campaign is 26C37. Drivers can enter their 17-character vehicle identification number at nhtsa.gov/recalls to confirm whether their truck is affected, or call the NHTSA Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236. Ford’s own customer line for this recall is 866-436-7332.

Until a fix lands, drivers can protect themselves with an old habit that predates backup cameras: a full physical check of the area behind the truck before reversing, and a slow, deliberate release of the brake rather than a quick pullout. Ford has not issued a do-not-drive advisory for this recall, so trucks remain safe to operate, but the company is asking owners to treat the camera as unreliable until the update installs. Owners who booked a dealer visit for an unrelated repair can ask the service department to check whether the software update is already available for their specific build date.

Part of a record year for Ford recalls

This recall lands inside a stretch that has made 2026 Ford’s largest recall year on record. The automaker has filed 37 separate recall campaigns with NHTSA this year, covering more than 10 million vehicles, a tally that already outpaces the roughly 13 million vehicles Ford recalled across all of 2025. Separate 2026 campaigns have covered Mustang, Bronco, Explorer and Ranger models for issues ranging from wiring faults to piston defects, and a 741,000-vehicle recall over a parking system fault pushed the year’s total past the 10 million mark in July.

Consumer advocates who track recall data point to two forces behind the surge: tighter NHTSA enforcement following several high-profile safety failures industry-wide, and Ford’s own admission that some earlier recall repairs were performed incorrectly at dealerships, forcing a second round of fixes for issues including transmission clutches, shifters, power windows and headlights. For F-150 and Super Duty owners, the practical lesson is to keep every recall letter and confirm the repair was completed correctly rather than assuming a single dealer visit closed the case.

Backup camera recalls are hitting the whole industry

Ford is not alone this year. Stellantis recalled 844,027 Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and Dodge vehicles over a nearly identical rearview camera failure in September, and Honda, Mitsubishi and Toyota have all issued separate backup camera recalls on other model lines in 2026. Federal law has required rearview cameras on all new passenger vehicles from 2018 onward, aimed at cutting the roughly 267 backover deaths and 15,000 backover injuries the government estimated occurred nationwide each year before the mandate. A software bug that blocks that exact safety feature undercuts the reason it exists, which is why NHTSA treats these camera failures as recalls rather than minor software bugs.

Drivers who bought a used F-150 or Super Duty in this build range should not assume a prior owner already handled the fix. Recall repairs follow the vehicle, not the original buyer, and are free regardless of who owns the truck now or where they bought it. Checking the VIN takes under a minute and works for any Ford, at any dealership, at any point in the truck’s life.

Why the camera rule exists in the first place

The federal requirement forcing every new vehicle under 10,000 pounds to include a rearview camera traces back to a single driveway accident. Pediatrician Greg Gulbransen accidentally backed over and killed his 2-year-old son, Cameron, in 2002, and spent years afterward pushing Congress to act. President George W. Bush signed the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act in February 2008, and NHTSA’s rule finally took full effect for all new vehicles built after May 2018, mandating a camera view covering a 10-foot by 20-foot zone directly behind the vehicle.

NHTSA estimates backover crashes killed an average of 210 people and injured 15,000 more nationwide each year before the mandate took hold, with children under 5 accounting for nearly a third of those deaths. Large vehicles with poor rear visibility, including the pickup trucks and SUVs covered by this recall, were involved in roughly 60 percent of backover crashes. That history is why regulators treat a camera outage as a safety recall rather than a routine software patch, even when Ford has not tied this specific defect to a confirmed crash.

The F-150 has topped US truck sales charts for decades, and the Super Duty line sells in the hundreds of thousands each year, so a defect affecting even a narrow production window reaches driveways in nearly every state. Fleet operators running F-150s and F-250s for construction, delivery or utility work face an added wrinkle: a backup camera failure on a work truck often means backing into a loading dock, a job site trailer, or a coworker on foot, rather than a residential driveway. Fleet managers should run every VIN in a company’s roster through NHTSA’s lookup tool rather than relying on individual drivers to check their own trucks. A single missed notice can leave a vehicle operating with an unreliable camera for months.

Sources:

• Cars.com: Ford Recalls More Than 47,000 F-Series Trucks Over Rearview Camera
• Motor1: Ford Recalls 2026 – 11.2 Million Cars
• The Auto Wire: Ford’s 2026 Recall Tally Tops 10 Million Vehicles