If you’ve resisted the urge to buy a Ford Bronco until now, the 2026 model is better than ever. But if the off-roader’s charming ruggedness and everyday usability grabbed your attention earlier, you may be at risk of losing your roof, or at least parts thereof. A new recall issued via the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reveals that the 2021 and 2022 model years, both 3-door and 5-door, may have hardtop roof panels that were “improperly manufactured,” and as such, “sections” of the outer roof panel could “separate and detach” from the Bronco, which could cause chaos for those following behind on a freeway. Worse still, Ford is more than six months from being ready to fix it.
NHTSA Lists 16,200 SUVs in Ford’s Latest Recall
Ford
The NHTSA recall report says only 16,200 potentially involved vehicles are estimated to have the defect, with the affected vehicles forming part of a production population that was built between September 23, 2020, and January 13, 2022. As the production dates indicate, 2021 model year Broncos are especially prone to the issue, with 15,045 units affected compared to just 1,155 for the 2022 Bronco. While it may seem scary to contemplate the thought of an entire roof panel flying off the vehicle, it doesn’t seem likely that such an extreme scenario is likely without any red flags. The report adds that the Molded-In-Color (MIC) hard tops “may exhibit delamination or cracking in the exterior skin of the roof panel,” which indicates that there will be warning signs before the problem gets bad enough to cause large pieces to detach, but it clearly is still possible, or the NHTSA wouldn’t consider it a safety issue. So why did it happen?
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The official description of the cause isn’t very revealing: “During this time period, supplier process and equipment parameters for MIC hard top manufacture were not optimized.” But that’s not all the document says. The manufacturing was carried out by Webasto Roof Systems, and in collaboration with Ford’s engineering team, they eventually discovered this year that variances in temperature, or thermal cycle testing, recreated the problem, with the hard tops cracking. Numerous tests were conducted between the problem first being investigated by Ford in January of this year and now, and the Blue Oval says “process improvements” introduced in September 2021 corrected the problem, at least for 5-door hard tops. So far, Ford has 25 warranty claims, two field reports, and two customer complaints in the U.S., received from December 2021 to December 2025. In other words, Ford has been aware of the issue for a long time, and only now has the problem been deemed worthy of a recall.
Ford Bronco Owners Are In For a Long Wait
Ford
The recall schedule has wildly different dates for resolving this recall. The planned dealer notification date was May 12, 2026, and owners can expect an interim notification from May 27-29. But the important date is the “planned owner remedy notification date,” or the date from which Ford expects to be ready to fix the problem by inspecting hard tops and replacing those showing signs of cracking, and that’s November 5, 2026. That’s more than six months from now. The recall report doesn’t warn owners not to drive their vehicles, so it could be worse, but this is an unusually long time to wait. And with Ford already on course to break recall records again in 2026, this is another blight on the Blue Oval’s reputation.
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