Ford Fixed 615,000 Explorers' Flying Roof Rails. NHTSA Just Found Out They Didn't.

In 2021, Ford told 615,000 Explorer owners that the decorative trim on their roof rails might fly off at highway speed, because molded clips weakened by sun exposure couldn't maintain their grip. Ford's fix for some of those vehicles was two-part epoxy, which is a polite way of saying they glued a structural component back onto a 4,300-pound SUV that spends its life baking in direct sunlight.

On July 17, NHTSA announced that 288,000 of those same 2016–2019 Explorers need to be recalled again because the epoxy didn't hold.^[1] Ford didn't report the problem, but forty-six owners filed complaints with NHTSA directly, including people whose Explorers had already been through the first recall and received the epoxy fix that was supposed to be the permanent solution.

Ford's 2021 campaign targeted only painted covers, because the company assured regulators that plated versions had "sufficient retention strength" and weren't prone to the same sun-induced degradation. Five years of UV and thermal cycling proved that confidence misplaced, and every 2016–2019 Explorer is now in play. Ford has abandoned epoxy for push-pin fasteners, a mechanical fix for what was always a mechanical problem.

FARS data gives the Explorer a grimmer backdrop: between 2014 and 2023, 3,797 people died in Ford Explorers at a rate of 1.54 per 100 million VMT, the deadliest Ford SUV by body count.^[2] Roof rails didn't kill those people, but a plastic panel shearing off at 70 mph becomes road debris that can trigger secondary crashes for motorcyclists and anyone following close enough to catch two feet of Ford trim through their windshield.

Ford has issued 56 NHTSA recalls year-to-date, triple the runner-up, and recalled 19.6 million vehicles in the past 12 months, which iSeeCars.com notes is more than the rest of the auto industry combined.^[3] JD Power gave Ford its Initial Quality award on June 25, and Ford launched "We put quality first" ads on July 4 before recalling roughly a million more vehicles over the following 18 days. Initial quality measures whether the infotainment boots up on delivery day; it does not measure whether the roof stays on your car five years later.

What Explorer owners should do: Check your VIN at nhtsa.gov/recalls. If you had the first recall addressed with epoxy, you need the new push-pin fix when it ships in late September; notification letters go out in late August. Rattling or wind noise at speed means the cover is on its way off, and you should warn the motorcyclist behind you; for questions, call Ford at 866-436-7332.