Federal safety regulators have opened an investigation into the Ford Explorer after reports of burn injuries linked to side airbags, covering an estimated 1,236,155 vehicles from model years 2021 to 2026. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation announced the probe on November 10, according to AutoMotor News.
The investigation is not a recall. NHTSA is examining reports that side airbags can cause burn injuries when they deploy, and the agency will decide whether a defect exists and whether a recall is warranted. The population figure is an estimate of the vehicles that could be affected if the probe leads to action, and owners can review the reports cited by NHTSA on its own site.
A familiar name, a new question
The Explorer is one of Ford’s best-selling SUVs and a fixture of American family driveways, which makes any safety question about it newsworthy even at the investigation stage. Ford has not been ordered to recall the vehicles, and the company will typically cooperate with the agency’s information requests while the probe runs.
What Explorer owners should do
Owners who have experienced an airbag deployment injury, or any unusual airbag behaviour, can file a complaint with NHTSA, which uses owner reports to shape its investigations. The probe sits alongside a separate NHTSA evaluation of a petition alleging camshaft and lifter failures in 7.3-litre gasoline engines in 2021 to 2022 Ford E-350 and related trucks, covering 54,787 vehicles. Neither matter is a recall today, and both should be reported as investigations, not as confirmed defects.
The probe also sits alongside a second Ford matter at NHTSA: the agency is evaluating a petition alleging camshaft and lifter failures in 7.3-litre gasoline engines in 2021 to 2022 Ford E-350 and related trucks, covering 54,787 vehicles. Neither matter is a recall, and both should be reported as investigations rather than confirmed defects, a distinction that matters to owners deciding whether to keep driving. NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation opens dozens of probes a year, and only a fraction lead to recalls — but the Explorer’s sales volume means that if this one does, it would be one of the largest actions of the year.
