Ford Recalls 91,198 F-150 Trucks Over Running Lights That Refuse to Dim

If you drive a 2018 to 2020 Ford F-150, the country’s best-selling vehicle for almost half a century, your truck may be back in the spotlight for the wrong reason. Ford is recalling 91,198 F-150 pickups because their daytime running lights can stay fully lit instead of dimming when they should, a fault that can dazzle oncoming drivers and put your truck out of step with federal lighting rules. What makes this case unusual is that many of these trucks were supposedly fixed once already, six years ago. Ford has now admitted the repair may never have been carried out correctly.

Here is what owners need to know, what the problem actually does, and the simple steps to get your truck sorted at no cost.

What Ford Found and Why It Took Six Years

The defect involves the daytime running lamps, the lights that switch on automatically when you start the truck and run during the day to make the vehicle more visible. On the affected F-150s, moving the headlight switch from the automatic position to the headlamps-on position can leave the daytime running lamps burning at full brightness rather than dimming down to act as parking lamps. Lights that are too bright at the wrong moment can wash out the visibility of nearby traffic, and that is exactly the scenario the federal rules are written to prevent.

Because of that, the trucks no longer comply with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108, the regulation covering lamps, reflective devices, and associated equipment. When a vehicle fails to meet an FMVSS, the manufacturer is legally required to recall and repair it, regardless of whether a crash has been reported. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration logged the campaign during the week of June 22, 2026.

The frustrating part for owners is the history. These same trucks were covered by an earlier recall, campaign 20V097, back in 2020. Ford’s records showed the work as completed. The company has since learned that the correct software may never have been installed, meaning a fault drivers thought was resolved years ago is still present. In plain terms, the paperwork said the job was done, but the fix did not take. That is a useful reminder that a recall is only truly closed when the right repair is actually performed on your specific vehicle.

Which Trucks Are Affected

The recall covers certain F-150 trucks from the 2018 through 2020 model years, all of them previously included in the 2020 campaign. The fix this time is a software update: dealers will reprogram the body control module, the computer that manages the truck’s lighting and electrical functions, so the daytime running lamps dim correctly. There is no charge for the work.

Scale is what gives this recall weight. The F-150 has been America’s top-selling vehicle for decades, with Ford moving hundreds of thousands of them every year, so even a single model-year span covers a huge number of trucks on the road. If you bought your F-150 used, there is a real chance you were never told about the original 2020 recall at all, which makes checking your own vehicle even more important.

Ford plans to mail owner notification letters between July 6 and July 10, 2026. The company’s internal reference for the lighting recall is 26C28. If you would rather not wait for the letter, you do not have to.

A Second F-150 Recall Hits the Shifter

The lighting issue is not the only F-150 problem Ford flagged this month. A separate, smaller recall covers 10,742 examples of the 2018 F-150 fitted with the 3.3-liter engine, a six-speed transmission, and a column-mounted shift lever. On these trucks, quickly snapping the shifter from Park to Drive can cause the instrument cluster to briefly lose its gear indication and momentarily select an unintended gear, such as Reverse or Neutral.

The risk there is obvious. If the display does not show the correct gear and the truck slips into something other than what the driver intended, the vehicle can move in an unexpected direction. Like the lighting recall, this one has a familiar backstory: the affected trucks were previously repaired under an older campaign, 17V669, and Ford determined the earlier fix did not fully resolve the fault. The remedy is again a software update, this time to the powertrain control module, carried out free of charge.

Two recalls landing on the same nameplate in the same month, both tied to repairs that were supposed to have been done years ago, point to a wider truth about modern recalls. Software-based fixes are quick and cheap, but they only work if the dealer installs the right version on the right truck and records it accurately. When that chain breaks, owners can be left believing a problem is solved when it is not.

What F-150 Owners Should Do Now

You do not need to wait for a letter to find out whether your truck is involved. Take these steps:

• Find your 17-character vehicle identification number, printed on the dashboard where it meets the windshield on the driver’s side, on the driver’s door jamb, and on your registration and insurance documents.
• Enter the VIN at the free federal lookup tool at nhtsa.gov/recalls. It will tell you whether your exact truck has any open, unrepaired recalls, including these two.
• Call Ford’s customer service line at 866-436-7332 and quote recall reference 26C28 for the lighting issue, or contact your local Ford dealer directly to book the software update.
• You can also reach the NHTSA Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236 if you have questions about the recall process or want to report a problem.

Because both remedies are software updates, the dealer visit should be short, and there is no parts wait of the kind that can hold up mechanical recalls for weeks. The repair is free, and refusing or delaying it on a safety recall can complicate matters if your truck is later involved in a crash linked to the fault.

One broader lesson stands out for every driver, not just F-150 owners. A recall marked complete in a manufacturer’s records is not a guarantee the work was done right. If you own a vehicle with a history of recalls, especially one bought secondhand, run the VIN through the federal database yourself rather than trusting that a previous owner or dealer handled everything. It takes a minute and, as these two F-150 campaigns show, the records do not always match reality.

For now, the practical takeaway is simple. If your F-150 falls in the 2018 to 2020 window, assume it could be affected, check the VIN today, and book the free update. The fix is fast, but a dazzling headlight or a shifter that picks the wrong gear is not something worth driving around with while you wait for the mail.

Sources:

• https://www.wdbo.com/news/trending/recall-alert-ford-recalls-91k-f-150-trucks-running-light-problem/63HYR65TTZB7LCCVYGC25LDMD4/
• https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2026/ford-f-150-daytime-running-lights-recall-issued-again.shtml
• https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2026/ford-f-150-gear-shift-lever-recall-issued-again.shtml
• https://www.autoblog.com/news/ford-is-recalling-100000-f-150s-because-earlier-fixes-may-not-have-worked
• https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls