Ford Has Recalled Five Million Vehicles Because They Can’t Stay in Park

NHTSA announced Tuesday that Ford is recalling 741,195 vehicles because a transmission defect can damage the park system and allow rollaway.^[1] If this sounds familiar, congratulations on paying attention. It is Ford’s sixth major park-related recall since 2018, bringing the cumulative total past five million vehicles.

A brief history of Ford forgetting how to park. Between 2018 and 2022, Ford issued five separate recalls covering nearly four million Escapes, C-Maxes, Fusions, Transit Connects, and Edges for a shift cable bushing that could degrade or detach, leaving drivers who thought they’d shifted into Park stranded in Neutral.^[2] In December 2025, Ford recalled 272,645 F-150 Lightnings, Mustang Mach-Es, and Mavericks because the integrated park module software could fail to lock.^[3] In May 2026, Escapes and Lincoln Corsairs joined the rollaway roster again, and now today’s 741,195 brings the count current.

Three entirely different park mechanisms spanning internal combustion, hybrid, and battery electric drivetrains, all converging on one outcome: your Ford might decide to leave without you.

Models Ford keeps recalling for park failures aren’t obscure garage queens. In NHTSA’s fatality database, the F-150 alone accounts for 9,194 deaths across 20,066 fatal crashes from 2014 to 2023, with the Escape adding 2,284 and the Fusion another 2,168.^[4] Millions of these vehicles sit in driveways every night, and Ford has spent eight years confirming that some of them can’t reliably stay put.

Ford CEO Jim Farley has touted quality improvements in recent months. Six rollaway recall campaigns suggest those improvements haven’t reached the park system.

A rollaway recall isn’t the same as a rollaway fatality. FARS doesn’t isolate rollaway crashes as a distinct cause code, so we can’t quantify exactly how many of those 13,000+ deaths trace to vehicles slipping out of Park. But FMVSS 114, the federal standard governing “Theft Protection and Rollaway Prevention” that Ford keeps violating, exists because unoccupied vehicles that start moving kill people in driveways, parking lots, and intersections where nobody expects a parked car to roll.

Own a Ford? Check your VIN at nhtsa.gov/recalls. Use the parking brake every time, on every surface, even flat ground. Watch for an unilluminated “P” on your dash or a wrench light with a shift system fault message. And if the car feels like it’s still in gear after you’ve shifted to Park, trust your instincts over the shifter.