Ford Ranks Top Among Mass-Market Brands in JD Power Study but Issued Record Recalls in 2025

Ford was named the top mass-market brand in JD Power's initial-quality study released Thursday. Business Insider reported that the automaker placed second overall, trailing only Porsche and Genesis while narrowly beating Lexus. Three years ago Ford ranked 15th among 25 major automakers in the same study.

The company launched a quality reset in 2023 that included hiring, promoting, or bringing back about 350 experienced technical specialists. Kumar Galhotra, Ford's COO, said the company has more than doubled its technical specialist population since the reset began. Those specialists now lead mandatory design reviews and search for failure points before parts reach the plant floor, Galhotra said.

Ford also developed two AI-enhanced scanning tools, AiTriz and MAIVs, that entered use in 2024. Charles Poon, Ford's vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, said the company initially overestimated what AI alone could achieve. "Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it's only as good as information you use to train it," Poon stated.

He added that Ford had not done enough in prior years to retain knowledge from its most experienced engineers. Ford issued 152 recalls in 2025, nearly double the previous industry record of 77 set by General Motors in 2014. As of Thursday the company had issued 51 recalls in 2026, more than double the 19 recorded by Chrysler, according to NHTSA data cited by Business Insider.

Executives described many of those recalls as tied to vehicles designed between 2013 and 2020.