Ford Recalls 4.3 MILLION Trucks & SUVs: Should You Still Buy One? | Episode 1021

It's noon here in Ventner City, New Jersey, and our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

And this is Car Edge Live for Friday, February 27th.

That would be feisty Friday, ladies and gentlemen, with your hosts, me, Ray, here in Ventner,

where all the snow is melting, and Zach, back in D.C., waiting to be able to use his bike

again.

What's going on, handsome?

Pops, I ran 10 miles this morning, so I don't know, it's beautiful out.

We're getting busy here, moving around.

It's almost warm.

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Now dad.

Yes.

The big story this morning, just a few weeks after Ford announced that they were boosting

company-wide bonuses as initial quality improves, we have one of the largest recalls in automotive

history, not cracking the top 10, but getting awfully close.

Dad, Ford has recalled 4.3 million pickups SUVs over trailer brake and lighting, excuse me,

software air.

This is one of the biggest recalls we've seen in decades from an automaker.

I mean, you've got to go back to the 70s for some of the other recalls that have been this many

millions of vehicles.

We're not on Takata airbag scale here of 100 million cars, but 4.3 million, dad.

And again, it's just coming weeks after Ford employees and executives got an increase in

their initial company and their bonus, excuse me, as a thanks for initial quality improving.

What do you make of this, dad?

And what's going on with this recall?

Well, it's actually 4.38 million, but who's counting?

It's software.

It's a software issue.

And as long as there's been computers, there's been software issues.

So this is not necessarily one of those situations where a bean counter said, well,

if we paid 5% less for a certain part, it would save us millions of dollars.

And then it turns out, well, when you pay 5% less, the quality is significantly below

the savings and it ends up costing you millions of dollars.

This is a software issue.

This is a computer issue.

And anybody that's ever utilized a computer who has received the blue screen of death

or has seen the computer just absolutely freeze up and you have no idea why,

that's basically what this is.

So part of the problem is that vehicles have gotten too computerized, in my opinion,

so that they can fall prey to software issues like this.

Now, what's the issue?

Well, there's a device.

Oh, what the hell is it called?

It's the ITRM.

And you're thinking to yourself, what does that do?

Well, that tells, if you're trailering something, it coordinates the brake lights

and the brakes with the truck and the trailer and sometimes it doesn't communicate.

So that the truck, say you're trailering a 10,000 pound boat or something and you hit the brakes

in the truck and the truck is slowing down, but it didn't trigger the brakes on the trailer

because, well, they're just not communicating at the moment, kind of like husbands and wives

when they have fights and the truck stopping, the trailer's not, that could be an issue.

If you're pointing this a software recall, so obviously it's going to be a software fix,

but it has a mechanical impact on the driving characteristics of a vehicle,

has a safety impact, et cetera, and it's impacting obviously a massive number of vehicles.

Yes, and obviously the hope is that they can take care of it through an over-the-air update,

and hopefully they can, and if they can't and people have to bring their vehicles

into the dealership, well, that's good for the dealership because the service department

will make money, but just so people understand, it impacts 2021 to 2026 model years of the Ford

F-150. That's 2.3 million F-150s. It impacts 2022 to 2026 model year Ford F-250 Superduties,

just 1.13 million of those. It impacts 412,022 to 2026 model year Ford Mavericks.

It impacts the Ford Expedition from 2022 to 2026, the Ranger from 2024 to 2026, the Navigator

from 2022 to 2026, and even the Ford E-Transit vehicle, the 2026 model year, it impacts 13,000

vehicles. So it has a huge, huge impact, and there are any number of real issues that can crop up with

this, and there's already been 405 warranty claims in regards to this situation. So it's a real issue.

Hopefully, it's a relatively easy issue to fix. Ford is allegedly going to start letting people

know. They're planning on rolling out the fix starting sometime in May of this year,

and in March, March 17th, they'll start letting people know that their vehicle could,

and very well, might be impacted. What does this say about buying those vehicles?

We've been talking about Ford forever because they have led the league, as we like to say,

cheerfully, playfully. They've led the league in recalls, and it's not even close. Is this

something, Dad, that Ford shoppers, obviously, we're describing here, software-related, they,

of course, will get a fix out there, but it's impacting, to your point, brand new vehicles.

I mean, this is over one to 26 of the F-150, the Mavericks in there, the Superducer in there.

Should he still buy a Ford? Should he still buy one of these vehicles that's impacted by this

type of recall? And to be clear here, we see different types of recalls. For example, it was

last year that Toyota had to do a major recall because there was shrap metal in the engine.

Totally different ballgame when we're talking about, both are bad. I don't want to mention that,

but like totally different ballgame between the two. Does this influence, if you were in the

market to buy a Ford right now, Dad, your thinking?

That to me makes me laugh, and I'll tell you why. Ford has led the league in recalls for like five

of the last six years or something like that. And last year, the number of recalls that they had

so they more than doubled what the previous record had been.

And you would think to yourself, when you're the league leader or new recalls for like five or

six years in a row, and it's public information, and it's out there that you would think that that

would have an impact as to what people think when it's time to go buy a vehicle. The Ford F

series pickup trucks are the number one selling vehicle in America and have been for like the

longest time. So you ask the question, will that cause people to stop buying them? Apparently not

because Ford has led the league in recalls for the last few years. So I see comments all the time

on our videos about how like Stalantis' crap and Nissan's crap and Chrysler's crap,

and how people I would never buy a Chrysler or a Nissan or a Stalantis product because

the quality is bad and it's crap. Well, those people must be buying Fords, okay?

And the fact that they have issues doesn't seem to impact their buying decisions,

and many of the comments are, well, God bless Ford, at least they're coming out and saying

they're having a problem and they're going to take care of it, as opposed to I guess they're

thinking, unless the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration gets involved, all these

manufacturers just won't take care of these issues. They will when they're forced to.

You know, most of them aren't doing this stuff voluntarily. So

you would think it should have a negative impact on sales. You would think that. You would think

people would pay attention to that. But apparently, in many cases, it does not and people do not.

And for the life of me, when you have all this information available today,

I don't understand why people wouldn't pay attention to that.

You know, the fact that it's an over-the-air update, well, I'm just thinking that's got

to be pissing off service managers at Ford dealerships all across the country,

because if it's an over-the-air update, dealerships not collecting a dime for this recall and,

trust me, service departments in many, many cases love recalls, mechanical recalls, where the

vehicle has to be brought in, you know, because the manufacturer pays pretty well to take care of

those issues. And so, you know, you're going to have unhappy service managers and service advisors.

And apparently, you can have poor quality Ford products and Ford people just don't care.

Yeah. And I think that to be clear here, there's a little bit of laissez-faire attitude in general

towards recalls, because if you look at the list right now of who's leading the league in recalls

so far this year, yes, it's Ford. And we did look at this the other day and they were a 10 and now,

of course, they're at 11. But damn, Hyundai's right behind them with five and Hyundai sales

continue to grow. We get into a lot of RV companies and commercial vehicles as well, but

you also have Toyota here dad with four recalls so far this year. So GM with four recalls, you know,

it's people still buy these vehicles. And I think perception of the reliability is more important

than even what the data shows. The perception of a Nissan versus a Toyota, it doesn't matter that

so far this year Toyota has two more recalls than Nissan. It doesn't matter. People still have that

perception. So will this change or should this change your buying decision of a Ford vehicle?

No, it probably won't, probably shouldn't. I would actually go so far as to say that when

Toyota had the mechanical recall of the Schrap metal in the engine, yeah, that should influence

your buying decision. Don't go buy. What was it, the V6 or the V8 Tundra's had that issue?

Was it a four-cylinder or a six-cylinder? I think it was a four-cylinder.

Could have been the four-cylinder hybrid. And then it was also impacting the GXs,

if I'm not mistaken. It was like, yeah, don't go buy those. Like, yes, have that influence your

buying decision. Do not go buy a vehicle that's getting recalled for Schrap metal in the engine.

It has to have the whole engine replaced. But over-the-air software space for twin-turbo

You can say to yourself, well, look at Toyota, they're at least stepping up to the plate and

taking care of it. Well, yeah. And are they? The choice is bad.

Exactly. You know, if you have a reputation for producing quality vehicles and then you have

an issue like Toyota had, well, you can't just walk away from that. You need to step up and do

whatever needs to be done to keep those customers happy and to keep your reputation intact.

Dad, I might work on this over the weekend because this is an interesting idea from Daniel

Dornis. Thanks, Daniel. Nitsa should reclassify recalls to separate OTA software update recalls

from hardware updates. OTA software updates are no worries for most of us. I couldn't agree more.

That's the point I was just trying to make with the Toyota one. I might build a little app over

the weekend that does this, that classifies recalls to being either software, software with OTA,

software that you have to go to the dealership software with OTA or the air update,

or mechanical because, yeah, they're not apples to apples. So, mechanical or equal,

you got this from Dylan here. Yeah, great point. I can live with software recalls,

truthfully. If I had to keep taking my car in month after month, I'd be pretty ticked off.

Mechanical ones are a mess. Yeah, we need a new classification for recalls because they're not

all made equal. That's a really good point from our community here, Dad. Well, can I share something

with you that I was thinking about? Yeah, I'm all ears. Because I love the new dealer transparency

index that we're coming up with. Yeah. One of the things that I think legitimately, and I don't

know if there's a way to do it, but you being the young techie and me being the old fart,

you can school me on this, is there a way to not only score the dealers the way we're scoring

dealers, but score dealers on how quickly they provide the information requested in an internet

lead. And what do I mean by that? If the internet lead is, I'm interested in this vehicle, this

VIN number, and I need a complete breakdown of all the costs associated with that vehicle,

is the dealer, how many emails does it take for the dealer to finally provide that information

after they've said, hey, when can you come in? I'll have to put the time on that, but back to recalls.

Yeah, so I'm sorry, you know me, I get sidetracked and it's just,

you know, it triggered something in my brain and I apologize.

All good, all good, but back to recalls, Dad. Should these things be influencing people's

buying decisions right now for Ford's? I think the general consensus for us is they aren't,

and they probably won't, and they probably shouldn't, and that idea that you have around

dealers is something I will absolutely run with. Shall we switch gears?

Before we switch gears, let me say this, you know, there are any number of brands that

some are thought of to be better than others. Okay, I used to represent a brand many that

is thought of to be trash. Okay, and you know, I never had any issues, but then again, I always

leased mine and I never kept them for more than three years. They were always under warranty

when I had them. The reality is, is that people know certain brands have certain issues,

and yet it has never stopped people from buying those vehicles that they know that will have

these certain issues. So I guess the reality is, if I can sum it up in some way, the reality is,

is that people don't care. Okay, you know, it was known for years that the big joke at our

Land Rover dealership in Scottsdale and North Scottsdale was, well, our customers want to drive

one every day, they need to own two, because one of them will certainly be in the shop.

And so if the brand knows it, and the people who buy it know it, and they continue to buy it,

the reality is they don't care. You know, English cars for the longest period of time,

especially Jaguars, had electrical problems. Didn't stop people from buying Jaguars,

didn't stop buying MGs and triumphs and every other piece of crap that they produced,

because the people liked either the look or whatever it was about the car, and they bought it

anyway. I mean, Fiat sold in this country for a long, long time. Okay, and those were some of the

worst quality vehicles that, how the Ugo sold in this country. And that was the world's first

disposable farm. It was like the big click of automobiles. When it broke down, you just walked

away from it. So it is, you know, and people knew it at the time, because nobody would say to

themselves, yeah, the world's greatest automotive technology is, it's all happening in Yugoslavia,

because it wasn't. And but people would buy them. So I guess it doesn't matter. Sometimes people

plunk down the money, whether it be a lot of money in the case of Landrovers and things like that,

and they know it's a crap shoot, and they're okay with it, or they plunk down a lot less money for

Ugo, and they know that's a bigger crap shoot, but they do it. You're funny, man. You're a very

funny human being. All right, y'all, let's switch gears. We've got another story we need to talk

about, which is very interesting. And it has to do with the fact that there's consolidation happening

in the retail automotive industry. And that is important for our community, as you think about

buying cars. Dealership Buy, Sell, Database Updates, Penske buys two DeXus stores, can graph

automotive, sells Utah dealerships as part of deals, tracked across nine states. Here's the

TLDR and why you should care about this debt. Dealership consolidation has accelerated 34%

in 2025 to 2026, compared to the prior two years. That means at least one of the things that I can

do it from that is that smaller mom and pop dealerships are panicking, they're trying to get out

of the business and they're looking to sell to these big companies like Penske, for example.

We know that this year is going to be a very challenging year in the auto industry. We know

dealers and automakers are feeling some pain and some desperation after many years of making way

more money than they had ever thought was possible. And now we're starting to see an early

indication that there's some consolidation. And again, I think panic for some of the smaller

mom and pops to say, you know what, I want to get out of the business. I'll let you Penske

go figure it out. Asbury, Lithia, Group One, AutoNation, you figure it out. I think that's

going to be really fascinating. Well, you know, for a lot of the mom and pops,

and you know, I've worked for mom and pops and I've worked for Penske. And you know, so I've

worked both ends of the spectrum. Yeah. You know, for a lot of mom and pops, the situation is that

in many cases, the original owner has children. And just because the owner

was good in the car business does not mean just because he inseminated his wife that his children

will be. Okay. It doesn't carly. Oh, it just doesn't. Just because they had kids. I'm just saying.

Well, you could say it like that. I say it differently. But the point is, just because

you have a child doesn't mean, A, they want to be in the car business, or B, that they'd even

be any good at it. And I have seen any number of dealerships where the kids worked in the

dealership and it was painfully obvious, probably even to the owner, that the kid was no good at it.

Okay. So if that's the situation where you have children that either aren't interested or aren't

very good at it, it makes sense at the end of your career to figure out who to sell it to.

And so, yeah, you know, Penske's looking for luxury stores because the two stores they bought,

which are in Florida, were two Lexus dealerships. And the vast majority of the Penske Automotive

Group dealerships are on the luxury side of things because there's more money to be made there.

There's greater profits to be had there. So, yeah, this type of consolidation is not surprising.

What is surprising is how quickly it's happening and how quickly these groups are growing.

Yeah, if I may, Dad, I think your take is obviously interesting and it's informed from

your own experience where I'm sure you've worked with the children of owners who founded their

dealership groups. That being said, the story here to me is not that. That nepotism has happened

in perpetuity in the auto industry and that nepotism happens across a variety of categories

in industry. It's nepotism's nepotism that happens. Some might even say it happened here,

but jokes aside on nepotism, Dad, the fact that we have a 34% increase in this active consolidation

over the past two years, that to me is a signal of something going on more broadly. You and I

both know this and I think our community and audience knows this as well. Running a car

dealership is very cash intensive. And so, these dealers that are mom and pops getting out of this

could be a function of wanting to not be under the stress if I were to make payroll every two weeks.

And I'm not trying to say that dealerships are all in panic mode, but I think this could be an

indicator that it's like, now's a good time to sell, but let someone else have to deal with it.

I think if you're a mom and pop dealer, you can look at your crystal ball and you can say to

yourself, there are going to be major expenses that they're going and they being the factory,

the manufacturer, the brand is going to expect me to incur. It seems like every five to ten years

that most brands come up with a new image program that the facilities need to look this way instead

of that way. And that's millions of dollars. Or there's new tools, there's new computerization,

there's new software, there's different vendors for your CRMs and it's expensive. And if you don't

have the money or you have a limited amount of money and you know the future is going to call for

a lot of money in order for your store to continue to grow and be successful, well, yeah, in many

cases they're going to sell to large groups that have the money, that have one of the great things

when these groups started was, well, they wanted the synergies and the savings of being able to put

all these stores together and have less expense. That's BS because you end up with the regional

vice presidents and this and that. But that's a story for another day. The point is that these

large groups have large credit lines or sums of cash available to them so that as modernization has

to continue, they're in a position to be able to do it where the mom and pop might not have been.

And many of these mom and pop stores might be somewhat underperforming because they haven't

had the cash on hand, the modern eyes. And once they get sold and the big group comes in and spends

a few dollars, it can make all the difference in the world. Let's come here down to the chat.

Thank you for this, Rich. Appreciate the kind contribution. Go with the flow, just Ray. A

I try and put things in words that I probably shouldn't sometimes. And I apologize for that

up front. All good, man. All good. Again, folks, friendly reminder, we've got a new product in

beta. It's getting tighter every single day, car edge dealer ratings. If you're not using this,

I really need you to so that you can leave some comments here in the chat and back on the comments

or email me directly, Zach at caredge.com. From here, you can search for dealers. So

if I include my limited data, we've got 254. And from here, dad, I can click into any dealer.

I'll do this Alexander Evolkswagen. I can see what their dealer dock fee is. I can see what their

add-on rate is. And I can see the average amount negotiated on a car deal by car edge. I can come

down here and I can see this 2019 Acura MBX, for example. We had $312 in savings, $995.

Dock fee. We'll come to the original quotes. Drum roll, please. Yay, I love when it works.

You can see the actual Alpedore price quote. Really good stuff here. So I really encourage

everyone to use caredge.com slash dealer dash ratings. And please share your feedback again

back at caredge.com without the dealer ratings. We have a promotion going on for another day or so

here, $200 off our car buying service, 20% off car edge pro. We would be nothing with it.

We lost you. What happened to you? I think what Zach was trying to say before we lost them

is we would be nothing without our community and without our audience. And I don't know why he would

just kind of fall like that. I hit the wrong button. Thanks for falling up there. Here we go,

dad, from Daniel. Thanks for this, Daniel. Really appreciate it. For mom and pop stores,

not only the kids may not be good at, but sometimes the kid has no interest in desire

only wanting the money. Definitely. I have worked for mom and pops. And I have witnessed it first

hand where the kid is, the children are put in a position that they don't necessarily want to be in.

And they might not mind being in the car business. They might just mind having to actually sell the

cars to do it. And in many cases, what I saw were children that were more interested in the real

estate side of things, trying to find deals in that way, but not necessarily happy or active

or wanting to be active on the automobile sale side of things. So it's just, I mean, listen,

at a mom and pop store, you can have an issue today, and you can have a meeting, and you can

come to a conclusion as to how to solve it, and you can implement it today. At a large publicly

traded store, you can have an issue today, and you can make arrangements to have conversations

with those in senior management or regional management, say, next week. And you can have

that conversation and realize and agree that there is an issue, and that we'll put it into a

committee to figure out how to solve that issue. And maybe six months from now, you've actually

solved the issue. So there's good and bad with both. But let's face it, if you're the Penske

organization or Sonic or Asbury or Lithia or AutoNation or Group One, you've got the capital

wherewithal to do whatever the hell it is you need to do, it just might not necessarily be as

timely as a mom and pop might. We appreciate the kind contribution, Nathaniel as well. Thank you

so much for that. And we're going to end the show on this comment, Dad, from David. I was going to

buy a 2026 Ford XLT, Ford F-150 XLT in March. Should I wait due to the recall? Should David wait pops?

No. Just don't tell anything.

Folks, we appreciate you tuning in. It was another fun week of Car Edge Live. We're back on Monday

with more Car Edge Live. Please join us then. If you're not subscribed to the channel, we encourage

you to do so. If you know someone who's going to buy a car, sell a car, insure a car, protect a car,

whatever it is, tell them about Car Edge. We really appreciate it, Dad. It's going to be 65 degrees

here tomorrow. Oh, I didn't want to tell you, son. I got bit by a dog on my run this morning.

Excuse me? Yeah. Do you want to see it? Yeah. What kind of dog?

Tiny little thing. Oh, those little, those little pastaches. Okay. Everyone's going to now know that

I wore shorts for today's show. You ready? Yeah. Okay. Let's see if I can do this.

Where did the little dog get you? Wow. That dog have its rabies shot?

I don't know. I didn't stop because I was like, I'm running. I don't want to stop. So I kept running.

So now I have to go to the doctor, don't I? Yeah, I would think you should. Yeah.

And was the dog's owner there? Yeah. And she was like, oh, and I just kept running because I was like,

whatever. Well, that's not good. You should have asked the owner. If it was a tiny little thing,

I'm sure the owner, after it bit you, could have controlled that little mutt.

And asked to make sure that it had its rabies shots and all that neat stuff.

Okay. If a doctor watches this later, comment because I don't even know how to go to the doctor.

I am so embarrassed to say that. Excuse me. I don't have to go to a doctor.

Excuse me. Urgence care. Just go to urgent care. Say, hey, on my way here, I was running and a little

dog bit me. What do I do? Yeah. Did I ever tell you when I got bit by a dog?

Yeah, you've told me about you being bit by a dog. Yeah. Okay. Well, there you have it.

Yeah. It's going to be 65 there. Also, I would just like to say justice on our Slack,

which is what we use for internal communications. Dad messaged me already and he said,

WTF, yes, you need to go get a rabies shot ASAP. And then Phil also messaged me and said,

OMG, definitely get that checked out. So yeah, okay, I'll do it, guys. He's Louise. All right,

I just wanted to sit here and work all day, but I'll go to the doctor. Yeah. And then may I suggest,

is DC an open carry city? Dad, stop. Is rabies? I'm so naive. I need to do some research. I should

be concerned. Yeah, you should be concerned. Okay. Come on. Yeah, you should be a little

concerned. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, okay, okay. I'm going to go book an appointment right now.

Yeah, please, you know, because we want you here on Monday. We don't want you, you know,

foaming at the mouth or anything from, from, uh, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. I'm going to go

book an appointment right now. Yeah, yeah. Then justice will scare me. He said,

if you show symptoms of rabies that can be fatal. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. All right.

I'm going to do that. Okay. We're back on Monday. I'm going to go book an appointment. Okay. Okay,

but I love you dad. Being bad gun and, and stun those little, those little suckers. Let's say kill

them. If you liked the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe. It really does help

the show to grow. Thank you for listening.

Ford Recalls 4.3 MILLION Trucks & SUVs: Should You Still Buy One? | Episode 1021

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