In the customer loyalty stakes, Ford has to be playing with fire due to its recall history. After all, in 2025 alone, the company launched 153 recall campaigns in the US, affecting almost 13 million vehicles, and set an industry record at the same time. However, Ford truck consumers don’t seem to be bothered, as when it comes to putting money down on another vehicle, many of them choose to stay with the Blue Oval. And not only does Ford beat Toyota in this area, but Ford’s loyalty rate represents the highest of any brand in any category in a recent study.
Ford’s 66.2% Truck Loyalty Beats Toyota’s Again
In the 2026 JD Power US Automotive Brand Loyalty Study, Ford scored a 66.2% loyalty rate in the truck category. Toyota was second at 62.2%, a surprising result given Ford’s recent record history. The study used transaction information from JD Power’s Power Information Network, assessing whether someone would buy another new vehicle from the same brand when trading in that brand’s vehicle. The study only assessed transactions through franchised new vehicle dealerships, and the 2026 calculations covered the period between September 2025 and August 2026.
Ford’s achievement is even more remarkable when lined up against overall loyalty across all nameplates and segments. Those nameplates and segments averaged 50.2%, up from 49% a year earlier, and Ford’s 66.2% truck figure is therefore a long way above the market average. Toyota fared quite well, leading the mass market car category at 64.8% as well as the mass market SUV category at 63.8%. While Toyota remained one of the strongest loyalty performers in the entire study, it still finished runner-up to Ford in the truck category. And Ford has even more reason to celebrate, as the company held onto that category lead for the fifth consecutive year.
The Recall Record Makes That Loyalty Harder To Ignore
Ford can’t be too proud of its recall history and the fact that it was record-breaking for any manufacturer in a single US calendar year. The previous record fell to General Motors, with 77 recalls in 2014, and Ford had already passed that number by July 2025. Its mid-year tally was 89 and the company maintained that general cadence to get to 153 by the end of the year.
Of course, recalls don’t necessarily mean that each was an unrelated engineering disaster. Some recalls can be preventative, covering several model years. A few can be quite easily addressed through software instead of replacement hardware. And Ford does say that some of the increase in recalls reflects a deliberate effort to identify existing problems more aggressively instead of leaving them undiscovered.
Perhaps Ford’s top brass were stung by the (up to) $165 million civil penalty that the company received from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in November 2024. That followed an investigation into the company’s handling of defective rearview cameras and the NHTSA said that Ford had failed to recall affected vehicles in a timely manner.
It’s certainly true to say that brand loyalty is based on many factors, such as familiarity, dealer relationships, incentives, trade-in considerations, capability, model choice, and simple preference. Nevertheless, buyers were clearly aware of Ford’s recall history and potential quality problems, yet roughly two-thirds of qualifying Ford truck owners still stayed loyal to Ford.
Ford’s New Vehicle Quality Is Moving In The Opposite Direction
It’s not all doom and gloom for Ford in the quality arena and the company may have some reasons to celebrate. In JD Power’s separate Initial Quality Study (2025), the company scored 156 problems per 100 vehicles, making it the highest-ranked (or best-performing) mass-market brand. Nissan was next with 156 and Buick third with 162.
In 2025, Ford scored 193 problems per 100 vehicles, meaning it had cut its score by 41 problems per 100 vehicles in the space of a year. That represented the largest year-over-year improvement for any mainstream brand, with the differences clearly showing up at the model level. The F-150 was highest in the large light-duty pickup category, with the Super Duty ahead of large heavy-duty pickups. The Mustang won its segment, and the Explorer, Escape, Expedition, and Maverick were among the top three in their segments.
The study itself examines problems experienced during the first 90 days of ownership and involves areas like powertrains, interiors, driver assistance systems, and infotainment. It also incorporates dealer repair visit information based on hundreds of thousands of real-world repair events. These figures provide a meaningful insight into vehicles that leave Ford dealerships now, but they don’t necessarily reflect what may happen to those same vehicles when they are five years old.
Ford Has Changed How It Hunts For Quality Problems
Ford appears to have been making efforts to address quality issues, having reorganized its industrial operations and consolidated vehicle engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, and quality functions more closely. The company has also brought experience back into the design review process by hiring roughly 300 veteran engineers to act as internal auditors. The aim was to challenge designs while they were still represented by specifications, test parts, and prototypes, identifying weak points before components reached production.
Much of this work isn’t especially glamorous, involving process engineering, calibration checks, peer review, and part fitment. Still, the fact that Ford has brought in experienced engineers to ask difficult questions earlier in the development process may help the manufacturer address future quality issues.
Loyalty Doesn’t Mean That Ford Has Solved Reliability
Ford may indeed be hoping that its quality crisis is in its rearview mirror, but there’s not enough evidence to confirm that as yet. JD Power’s Initial Quality Study just focuses on the opening 90 days, but its Vehicle Dependability Study looks further down the road. The latter study surveys original owners of three-year-old vehicles and Ford didn’t lead the mass market rankings in that study of dependability. Buick was out front, followed by Mini and Chevrolet, while Toyota Motor Corporation collected eight individual model awards, more than any other OEM.
Since Ford reached the top of the Initial Quality Study rankings, some additional NHTSA-based data has emerged. This shows that Ford had already filed dozens more recall campaigns during 2026, as of information available in mid-October. So, while the 2025 record may turn out to be exceptional, there does seem to be some historical quality baggage working its way through the system too.
Ford now faces two challenges. It needs to ensure that it can get customers to come back after a record 153 recalls, but it also needs to ensure that it can give them better vehicles when they do walk through the door. It’s managing to get that footfall and level of commitment, and now its 2026 quality numbers suggest that it may finally be making progress on the other matter.
- Base Trim Engine
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3.0-liter Twin-Turbo V6
- Base Trim Transmission
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10-speed automatic
- Base Trim Drivetrain
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Rear-Wheel Drive
- Base Trim Horsepower
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325 HP
- Base Trim Torque
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400 lb.-ft.
- Base Trim Fuel Economy (city/highway/combined)
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16/24/19 MPG