Ford is recalling as many as 565,691 Bronco and Bronco Raptor SUVs, model years 2021 through 2026, over a wiring harness in the engine compartment. When the harness is damaged, it can short, and the recall language reported by CBS News says the short can "create smoke or start a fire" [1].
The defect rate is far narrower than the recall population. CBS News, citing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, reports that roughly 1 percent of the recalled vehicles actually carry the damaged harness [1]. One percent of 565,691 is about 5,657 SUVs. That figure is our arithmetic on the numbers CBS reports, not a count the agency published. No confirmed fires and no injuries are cited in the recall reporting [1].
The fix is a piece of protective sheathing over the harness, installed free of charge at a dealer. Owner letters begin going out August 24 [1].
What an owner is told to do, then, is short: wait for the letter, confirm the vehicle is covered, book the appointment, get the sheathing fitted. Nothing in the reported remedy asks owners to stop driving, to park outside, or to pay anything.
The number worth watching is not 565,691. It is how many of those owners the letter finds. Recall notices travel along registration records, which are accurate for a truck bought new last year and unreliable for one that has changed hands twice since 2021. The oldest vehicles in this population are five model years old. A defect rate of roughly 1 percent also cuts against compliance in a way that is easy to underestimate: an owner reading the letter can reasonably conclude the odds are 99 to 1 that their own Bronco is fine, and a free repair that requires a weekday dealer visit is exactly the kind of errand that slides. The people the recall is designed to protect are, by its own math, mostly people who do not need it, which is what makes finding the ones who do so difficult.
One sourcing note that matters for how firmly any of this should be read. Every figure here comes from CBS News's account of the recall, including the defect-rate estimate attributed to NHTSA [1]. The agency's own recall notice was not retrieved, so the campaign number, the full VIN ranges and the precise build-date cutoffs are not established here. Owners who want to check a specific vehicle should do it against Ford or NHTSA directly rather than against this description.
