Millions Of Ford F-150s Are Under Investigation For Rear Wheel Locking

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it has widened its look into roughly 1.27 million Ford F-150s from the 2015 through 2017 model years, following owner reports of unexpected downshifts that are causing sudden deceleration and, in some cases, rear-wheel lockup.

NHTSA first started looking at F-150 equipped with Ford’s 6R80 automatic transmission last March after 138 owners reported that their trucks would abruptly downshift without warning or any driver input, sometimes causing the rear wheels to skid. NHTSA says that kind of behavior could increase the risk of a crash, particularly if it happens at highway speeds or on slippery roads.

Ford has told regulators that this issue appears different from the problem that led to four recalls of earlier F-150 models built between 2011 and 2014. In those trucks, Ford said, the downshifting was tied to a supplier-related manufacturing defect that could interrupt signals from a speed sensor.

In August 2024, Ford recalled nearly 668,000 F-150 models due to similar concerns of unexpected downshifting—the problem was attributed to a loss of signal between the transmission sensor and the powertrain control computer. ​

For the 2015–2017 trucks now under NHTSA review, Ford believes the root cause may be electrical connections that degrade over time. Heat and vibration can wear down wiring or connectors, potentially leading to signal loss from a different transmission sensor.

Documents from NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation also noted intermittent signal loss from the truck’s transmission range sensor could cause a vehicle reversing uphill to slip into rneutral, allowing it to roll forward unexpectedly.

The agency has now opened an engineering analysis, the next step in the investigative process, to gather more technical data and conduct additional testing. Depending on what investigators find, the inquiry could eventually lead to a recall of 1,270,970 vehicles, though no action has been announced yet.

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