A 2022 Ford Explorer owner in Reseda, California, says the driver’s-side airbag did its job in an August 2025 crash, then left something behind. “Unreacted airbag propellant on my skin, causing a severe chemical burn.”
That complaint now sits in a federal file covering 1,236,155 Explorers.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation has opened a Preliminary Evaluation into side airbags on 2021 through 2026 Ford Explorer models. Police versions of the SUV are included.
This is not a recall. Not yet.
The agency is working from eight Vehicle Owner Questionnaires and four Early Warning Reporting “Death and Injury” submissions. Drivers and front passengers both describe second- and third-degree burns that needed medical attention.
Ten injuries have been reported. No deaths.
The owner accounts read less like airbag complaints and more like lab accidents. A 2023 Explorer passenger, reporting in December 2023, described first- and second-degree burns after a side impact and said “something had burned through 3 layers of clothing.”
A Missouri resident filed in July 2024. The side airbag, that owner wrote, sprayed a “hot chemical” across the left side of their body, “melting my clothes and causing chemical burns to my side.”
Three reports. Three different years. The same basic story.
Anyone who covered the Takata collapse knows how this sequence tends to begin. Scattered complaints, a preliminary probe, then a long argument about scope and root cause. Nothing confirmed here points to a failure on that scale, and NHTSA has not found a defect.
What the agency will do is measure scope, frequency, and consequence. If the fault holds up, a recall follows.
The timing could hardly be worse for Jim Farley.
Ford’s chief executive has spent the better part of two years telling anyone who would listen that the company has rebuilt itself around quality. In August he called the botched 2023 launch of the fifth-generation F-Series Super Duty “a catalyst for change.”
The change was not cosmetic. Two-thirds of Ford’s leaders across manufacturing, supply chain, engineering, and its industrial system were replaced. The company says the new people are obsessed with getting things right.
There was evidence it was working. In June, Ford ranked highest among mainstream brands in J.D. Power’s Initial Quality Study.
That study measures problems owners report in their first 90 days.
The Explorer complaints describe something else entirely. They describe the worst day of ownership, sometimes years after purchase, when a safety system fires and the occupant walks away with burns instead of bruises.
The Explorer is no stranger to the recall list either. Ford has already issued a recall this year covering Explorers alongside the Lincoln Aviator, part of a 2026 recall tally that has turned heads across the industry.
Initial quality scores reward the vehicles that leave the plant clean. Defect investigations judge the ones already on the road, built by the old regime and still carrying families and police officers every day.
Ford’s new leadership owns both numbers now.
The 2021 Explorer at the start of this investigation’s range came from a different Ford, with different managers and different priorities. The 2026 models at the other end came from the company Farley says he rebuilt.
If investigators find the same problem in both, that span will be the detail people remember.
For now, NHTSA’s engineers have a list of crashes, a list of burns, and 1.2 million SUVs to account for.
Share this Story