— A federal investigation into Ford cracked fuel injectors has been closed about 18 months after it was opened.
In April 2024, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a probe into the repairs performed during Ford cracked fuel injector recalls in November 2022 and April 2024.
The recalled vehicles included 2020-2022 Ford Escapes and 2021-2023 Ford Bronco Sports equipped with 1.5-liter engines.
According to the recalls, the high pressure fuel injectors can crack and allow fuel vapors and fuel to leak onto hot engine components, causing engine compartment fires.
Ford dealers were told to update engine control software designed to detect a pressure drop in the fuel rails, provide instrument panel cluster messaging to the drivers, decrease the engine output and lower the temperatures of possible ignition sources within the engine compartments.
Ford dealers also would install tubes into the engine’s cylinder head drain holes to redirect spilled liquid fuel past the various hot surfaces within the engine compartment and put the liquid fuel onto the roadways.
But NHTSA had problems with the repairs, namely because the fuel injectors were not repaired or replaced.
Ford and safety regulators did a lot of work together to create a better solution to the cracked fuel injectors. But then in March 2025 Ford determined the repairs were not completed on about 34,000 vehicles which had been recalled. Ford dealers recorded the vehicles as repaired when they weren't.
This led Ford to announce a recall for those vehicles, then Ford decided to issue another cracked fuel injector recall to replace all the injectors.
NHTSA has closed its investigation based on Ford's new recall repairs.