Chevy Silverado 1500 vs Ford F-150 Reliability: The Recalls, the Free-Repair Programmes, and Who Pays for What

If you searched "Silverado vs F-150 reliability" you already know the shape of the other pages: a towing table, a horsepower table, a price table, and a closing paragraph saying the F-150 is better for towing and the Silverado is better value, or the reverse. This page does none of that. It reads the paperwork the two companies filed with the federal government and asks a narrower question with a bigger number attached: if something goes wrong on this truck, who pays?

Three disclosures first. This page was written by Pulscar, which makes a free AI sound check for car noises, so weigh it as something produced by a company in an adjacent category. We accuse neither manufacturer of anything. Every population, date, build window, remedy sentence and exclusion below was copied from a document Ford or General Motors filed itself, or from a resume written by NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation, each linked at the bottom. We reached no verdict on which truck is better, because after reading the documents we do not think the question has one answer.

One method note matters more than anything else here: we do not compare the two trucks' raw complaint totals anywhere on this page. There is nothing honest to divide them by, and the next-but-one section explains why — that reasoning is also the reason to distrust most reliability rankings you will read this year.

How to use this comparison

In order: why raw complaint counts are off the table, and what replaces them. How the marks work. Then the two engine files — Chevrolet's 6.2L recall and Ford's 2.7L recall — each read from its own Part 573 report rather than a press summary. Then the two free-repair programmes side by side, which is where the money is and where both companies have written exclusions that decide most claims. Then what is still open at the regulator. Then the transmissions, the F-150's heaviest file and a close mirror of GM's. Then what each truck's own complaints are made of, then the traps, the composite cases and the action plan. One rule runs through all of it: the model year is not the answer; the VIN and the engine are.

Why this page refuses to compare the two complaint totals

Read this section even if you skip the rest: the same flaw sits under most reliability rankings published about these trucks.

Here is the temptation. NHTSA publishes every complaint an owner files, free, through an open API. Pull the F-150 for model years 2019 through 2024 and you get one number; pull the Silverado 1500 for the same years and you get another; declare the smaller one the winner and you have written the article everybody else wrote. We pulled both and then did not use them that way, for a reason worth spelling out.

A complaint count with no fleet size attached measures how many of a thing exist, not how often it breaks. To make counts comparable you must divide by the number of those vehicles on US roads — the one denominator neither company publishes for the vehicle we are counting.

Ford reports F-Series as a single sales line, folding the F-150 together with the Super Duty F-250, F-350 and above — different trucks, different engines, different frames, sold in large numbers. Chevrolet reports Silverado in a way that mixes the 1500 with the 2500 and 3500 heavy duty models. Divide F-150 complaints by "F-Series sales" and you have divided a light-duty numerator by a light-plus-heavy-duty denominator; divide Silverado 1500 complaints by "Silverado sales" and you have done the same thing by a different amount. The two errors do not cancel, and they are not even the same size, because the heavy-duty share of each family's volume differs and neither company publishes the split needed to correct for it.

A second problem sits underneath the first and survives even if perfect sales data appeared tomorrow. A complaint is a piece of writing somebody chose to produce. Whether it exists depends on whether the owner knew the database existed and whether a recall had just been announced for their truck. Recall publicity drives filing: 124 of the Silverado complaints in our sample name recall 25V-274 or a GM bulletin number in the text, so those owners arrived already knowing a campaign existed. That measures attention as much as failure.

So we compare two other things, and both of them are legitimate.

First, composition inside each truck. What share of the F-150's own complaints sits in each category, and what share of the Silverado's own complaints sits in each category. A share of a truck's own total needs no external denominator, because the denominator is that truck's own complaint count. It answers a question the raw totals cannot: not "which truck generates more paperwork" but "when owners of this truck write in, what do they write about." The split turns out to be startlingly clean.

Second, the documents. A recall population is not self-selected: the manufacturer counts the VINs and files the number under 49 CFR Part 573, under legal obligation, on a form with fields. Coverage terms, exclusions, build windows and defect estimates are all stated by the company itself, and an open investigation is a fact about the regulator's docket. None of it depends on how many owners felt like writing something down. These are the hardest numbers available about either truck, and almost nobody reads them.

One honesty note that cuts the other way. A recall count is also not a reliability score. A manufacturer that files more recalls may be finding problems earlier, or being pushed harder by the regulator, or simply building more configurations of one nameplate. We name specific campaigns below and say what each covers; we do not add them up and declare a loser.

How the marks work

Two levels, no third, exactly as on every technical page we publish.

🟢 Documented means the statement rests on a numbered document we opened and read — a Part 573 safety recall report, a programme or special coverage bulletin, a service bulletin, or an ODI investigation resume. Every 🟢 has an entry in the Sources block with a link, and the population, date or phrase is copied from that document.

⚪ Reported means an owner wrote it, or we counted it. NHTSA states plainly that complaints are unverified consumer reports, and a dollar figure inside one is the number an owner typed, not an audited invoice.

There is no level for "we think." Where a reader might expect an opinion, there is a document instead — or a statement that we could not find one.

The Chevrolet engine file: recall 25V-274, and exactly what it covers

The largest single object in either truck's file is GM's L87 recall, and its scope is narrower than most coverage of it suggests. We read the amended Part 573 report, submitted 22 July 2025.

Three things in that table decide whether it applies to a truck in front of you. First the engine code: this is a 6.2L L87 action only, and a Silverado 1500 with the 5.3L is outside it by the recall's own sentence. Second the build window, a production window and not a model year range — a 2024 truck built after 31 May 2024 is out. Third the remedy: the default outcome of this recall is not a new engine but an inspection followed by thicker oil.

GM's warning-sign list in the same report is worth copying down, a rare case of a manufacturer telling owners what the failure sounds like: drivers may be alerted "from: (a) knocking, banging, or other unusual engine noises; (b) illumination of the check engine light; and/or (c) engine-performance issues, including hesitation, high RPMs, abnormal shifting, reduced propulsion, or a no-start condition." Note the order: the noise is first, the warning light second.

The Ford engine file: recall 24V-635, and exactly what it covers

Ford's comparable engine action is a great deal smaller, and its scope is tighter still. We read the Part 573 report submitted 23 August 2024.

Put the two files side by side and the difference is not "one truck has an engine problem and the other does not." Both have one. What matters is scale, scope and warning. GM's action names 107,244 Silverado 1500 trucks at an estimated 3 percent; Ford's names 47,719 F-150s at an estimated 1 percent. GM's spans a 39-month production window; Ford's spans six months on one engine. And the two describe opposite warning orders — Ford's report leads with the malfunction lamp, GM's with the noise.

That last difference is not cosmetic. A fault that announces itself with a stored trouble code is one an OBD2 scanner can find. A fault whose first sign is a knock is not, because there is nothing stored to read.

Ford also has a connecting-rod recall of its own, and its scale is the point: 25V-344 covers 156 vehicles in total, of which 135 are F-150s built between 26 February and 10 March 2025, from a mis-machined connecting rod spot face. The same failure family as GM's, on populations that differ by a factor of several thousand.

Two free-repair programmes, read side by side

This is the section with the money in it, and nobody writes it, because it means opening two dealer bulletins rather than a press release. Both manufacturers run a 10-year, 150,000-mile no-cost engine repair tied to their engine recall; both transfer to later owners; and both contain an exclusion that decides most real cases. The two exclusions are not the same shape.

Read the two exclusions together and the practical difference appears. GM's programme pays for the bottom end and specifically refuses the top end. A Silverado owner whose engine failed from rod bearing damage is inside it; one whose engine failed because a lifter collapsed and took the camshaft with it is, by the bulletin's own capitalised sentence, outside it — even though both arrive at the dealer with the same symptom, and often after the same noise. Ford's programme pays for exactly one failure mode and only after one inspection. A smaller promise on its face, and a cleaner one to adjudicate: either the valve broke into the cylinder or it did not.

Both have already lost their retrospective arm. If you paid for the repair yourself and meant to claim it back, GM's window closed on 31 May 2026 and Ford's on 30 June 2026. That sentence is worth more than a towing chart, and it lives in paragraph four of a dealer bulletin.

What happens if the free-repair programme says no? Both exclusions leave a real population outside: GM's refuses valvetrain and top end failures in capital letters, and Ford's covers only the valve failure described in 24S55 and only after that inspection. If you land outside, the first move is not a second opinion on price but a second opinion on the diagnosis, because the words the dealer writes on the repair order decide which side of the exclusion you are on. Ask for the failed parts, ask for the inspection result in writing, and keep every document, because both programmes transfer to the next owner and the paperwork is part of the truck's value. If a noise came first, capture it before it is gone: Pulscar's free sound check takes 30 seconds of the engine running, needs no card and no subscription, and emails a report in about 10 minutes.

What is still open at the regulator, on each truck

An open investigation is not a finding of fault; it is a statement that the agency has enough reports to keep looking. On 12 September 2026 we read NHTSA's investigation flat file rather than trusting a search page. Both trucks have open files, and the files are about different systems.

The asymmetry here is the clearest single result on this page, and it is documentary rather than statistical. The Silverado's open regulatory file is about its engine, and it has grown rather than shrunk: one analysis asks whether the recall's build window was drawn too narrowly, and a second, opened three weeks before this page was written, asks whether the remedy worked at all. The F-150's open regulatory file is about its transmission, on an older generation than most used-F-150 shoppers are looking at, and its engine analysis closed two years ago with a recall attached.

That does not make one truck good and the other bad. It tells you where to point your attention on each — and that on the Silverado side, "has the recall been done" is not yet the same question as "is the engine fine."

Which of these two trucks is safer to buy used, in one honest paragraph? Neither, as a badge — the answer belongs to the engine and the VIN. A 2021-2024 Silverado 1500 with the 5.3L is outside the biggest GM engine campaign entirely, and a 2021-2022 F-150 built outside that six-month window in 2021 is outside Ford's. Where the two differ most is the direction of travel: GM's engine file is still opening, with two analyses live, and Ford's engine file closed in 2024 while its transmission file kept going. Before you commit to either, run the VIN through NHTSA's free lookup, then read what the truck is telling you by ear, because both manufacturers list a noise among the warning signs. Pulscar's free sound check exists for that second half: 30 seconds of the engine running from your phone, no card and no subscription, with the report emailed back in about 10 minutes.

The transmissions: two recalls that each had to be recalled again

The F-150's transmission file is the heaviest document set either truck has, and it contains something rare: a recall issued because a previous recall repair was recorded as completed and was not. What makes it worth a section is that GM has exactly the same thing on the Silverado.

Two lessons come out of that table, and they apply to both brands equally.

A completed recall on a vehicle history is a record of a claim, not proof of a repair. Both manufacturers have now filed a Part 573 report whose entire content is "the last repair was logged as done and was not done," both with the estimated defect percentage at 100 percent — the form's way of saying every vehicle in the population is affected. A closed recall line is better than nothing; it is not an inspection.

A recall remedy can leave you with less truck than you bought. GM's fix for the diesel transmission valve is not a new valve body; it is software that watches for wear and, when it finds it, caps the transmission at fifth gear with a warning on the dash. That is a defensible answer to a wheel-lockup risk and it is also, for the owner, a truck that stops doing what it did. Nobody writes that in a comparison article, because it means reading the remedy field on the form.

What the complaint composition looks like inside each truck

Our own counting, method first and limits immediately after.

On 12 September 2026 we pulled every complaint NHTSA publishes through its open complaints API for the Ford F-150 and the Chevrolet Silverado 1500, model years 2019 through 2024, using every model string NHTSA's own model endpoint returns for each nameplate in each year. For the F-150 that includes the regular cab, super cab, super crew, diesel and hybrid variants and excludes the Lightning, which is electric and would distort an engine comparison. For the Silverado it includes the 1500, the 2019 LD 1500 and the 2022 1500 LTD, and excludes the Silverado EV and every heavy-duty model. Records are de-duplicated by ODI number. That gives 4,309 F-150 complaints and 3,906 Silverado 1500 complaints — the two totals we will not put in a ratio.

Here is what each truck's own complaints are made of, using NHTSA's category assignment rather than our words. The percentage is always a share of that truck's own total.

The shape fits in one sentence, and it matches the documents rather than contradicting them. When a Silverado 1500 owner writes to NHTSA, it is most often about the engine; when an F-150 owner writes, it is most often about the drivetrain. Those are the same two systems the recalls and the open investigations point at, arrived at independently — the only reason we trust the split at all.

We then ran narrow text counts inside each model and checked the matches by hand. The surviving counts:

Two of those rows deserve a sentence each. The campaign-number row measures publicity, not failure: Silverado owners were far more likely to arrive at the complaint form already knowing a recall existed, which is exactly the self-selection that makes raw totals untrustworthy. And the acoustic-word row is the flattest number on this page — about one complaint in ten on both trucks describes a sound, a reminder that the noise problem is not a brand problem.

Now the limits, and they are not small. A complaint is what an owner decided to write, not a record of the vehicle. Counting the word "lifter" counts owners who used that word; an owner whose lifter failed but who wrote "the engine started ticking and then died" is not in that 383. The categories are NHTSA's, assigned from the narrative, and the lighting row above shows how a category can be dominated by people who do not own the vehicle at all. Nothing here is a failure rate.

The counters we built, and the one we threw away

We also tried to publish a typical repair bill on each side, taken from the dollar figures owners type into their complaints. We built the extractor, ran it, read the matches, and threw the result away — a good illustration of why a number should never be trusted because a script produced it.

On the Silverado side, 37 engine-failure complaints contained a figure between $1,000 and $60,000. Read by hand, the largest was an owner writing that "my investment is completely a loss of $60,000.00" — the truck, not the repair. Another was a $1,300 monthly car note; another was $1,100 for an idler pulley the owner was told to replace before the recall work could start. On the F-150 side, of 19 transmission complaints with a figure, the largest was "still have $44,000 to pay it off" — a loan balance. So there is no median repair cost on this page. False precision is worse than an honest gap.

What we can quote are individual accounts, marked as what they are. ODI 11732571 reports a dealer quoting "$21,343.24" for a new engine at 123,000 miles; ODI 11646498 reports "$16,893" after a seizure, the owner writing that they could not afford it; ODI 11740532 reports "$18,000 for a refurbished motor" that failed again at 12,000 miles. On the Ford side, ODI 11761799 reports an engine replacement quoted at "$15,000" with Ford declining assistance because roughly 118,000 miles "exceeded the assistance threshold"; ODI 11665043 reports "almost $10,000" for a transmission after a CDF drum failure; ODI 11671824 reports one where "Ford Motor Co only covered $3800 of it." ⚪ Six people, not a distribution.

The document that forbids a repair

One Ford document deserves its own section, because there is nothing like it in the GM file and because it changes what a quote for the same symptom is worth.

Ford SSM 52334, issued 6 March 2024, addresses 2011-2024 Mustang and F-150 vehicles with the 5.0L engine that "may exhibit a tick tap and/or typewriter ticking noise at idle after an engine oil change." It describes the sound precisely — heard when engine temperatures reach 150°F or higher at idle up to approximately 1,700 rpm, typically audible at the front wheel well, often isolated to the bell housing or oil pan area. Then it says this: the noise "is not detrimental to the engine function or durability and has no short or long term effects on the engine. This an operating characteristic of the 5.0L engine and no repairs should be attempted." 🟢

That is a manufacturer instructing its own dealers not to fix something, and for a 5.0L F-150 owner it is one of the most valuable sentences in the Ford document set: the page to have open if a shop proposes a teardown for a tick on that engine.

It cuts the other way too. A document saying a particular tick is normal does not mean every tick on a 5.0L is normal — a judgement nobody can make from a written description, which is why the sound itself is worth capturing. On the GM side there is no equivalent "do not repair" instruction; there is a recall whose warning-sign list begins with knocking and banging.

Does an OBD2 scanner tell you whether one of these engines is about to fail? For the failures on this page, largely no, and both manufacturers say so in their own paperwork. Ford's 24V-635 report expects a malfunction indicator lamp, so a scanner is useful there. GM's 25V-274 report lists unusual engine noise first and the check engine light second, which means a scan can come back clean on a truck already making the sound that precedes a failure. A bearing that has begun to knock is, to the engine computer, still producing acceptable numbers. That is the gap Pulscar's free sound check was built for: 30 seconds of engine audio recorded on a phone, no card and no subscription, and a report emailed back in about 10 minutes. It reads no trouble codes and it clears no lights, so it replaces nothing a scanner does. Use both if you have a truck from either list.

Engine by engine: what a used buyer is actually buying

There is no single verdict for these two nameplates, because the answer changes with every engine option. Everything below is a scope statement from a document, not a judgement about the engine's quality.

The honest summary is one sentence: the Silverado's risk is concentrated in one engine, and the F-150's is spread across gearboxes and model years. A 5.3L Silverado avoids the biggest GM engine file entirely; a 2.7L F-150 built outside that six-month window avoids Ford's. Neither sentence is available to someone comparing brand-level reliability scores, and both are worth more than any score, because they are decisions you can make with a VIN and a free lookup.

Walked by odometer band instead: F-150 problems by mileage, Silverado problems by mileage, GMC Sierra 1500 by mileage for the Silverado's twin — which carries the larger share of the L87 recall — and Ram 1500 by mileage.

The traps: three ways a used-truck buyer still pays twice

Trap one: reading a recall's model years instead of its build window. The situation: a listing says "2021 F-150, 2.7L EcoBoost, recall work complete" and the buyer assumes the engine campaign is settled. What is real: 24V-635 covers F-150s built 1 May to 31 October 2021, and 25V-274 covers L87 engines built 1 March 2021 to 31 May 2024. Those are production windows, not model year ranges, and third-party recall pages routinely widen them. The price: buying a truck you believe is covered by a free-repair programme when it is not, and finding out at the first failure. The defence: run the VIN through NHTSA's own free recall lookup, which answers per vehicle, and screenshot the result before you pay.

Trap two: treating "recall completed" as "repair verified". The situation: the vehicle history shows the recall closed, so the buyer skips the inspection. What is real: Ford filed 25V-169 for 567 trucks that "did not have the remedy for Safety Recall 22S15 / 22V188 installed correctly but were recorded as having the repair successfully completed", and GM filed 26V-083 for 1,055 vehicles that "may not have received the correct transmission control module software as remedy for recall 24V797". Both list the estimated defect percentage as 100 percent. The price: paying for a truck whose safety repair exists only as a line in a database, then paying again when the fault it was supposed to fix arrives. The defence: ask the selling dealer to print the current open-campaign list for that VIN on the day of sale, not the history report.

Trap three: sending a noise to a code reader. The situation: the truck makes a new sound, no warning light is on, and the buyer runs an OBD2 scan, gets a clean screen and treats that as an all-clear. What is real: GM's recall paperwork lists "knocking, banging, or other unusual engine noises" as the first warning sign of the L87 defect, ahead of the check engine light, and a scanner reads only what the computer stored. Ford's SSM 52334 describes a 5.0L tick with no code at all. The price: a truck bought on a clean scan, with a repair on the far side of it that the programmes may exclude. The defence: treat the scan and the sound as two separate tests and do both. Sound versus scanner is the argument in one page.

Three composite situations, decoded

These are composite scenarios, not individual customers — the shapes of question we see, written in the subjunctive on purpose, with no invented names, amounts or dates.

Scenario 1: the 2022 Silverado with the 6.2 and a tick. Suppose a buyer is looking at a 6.2L Silverado 1500 inside the 25V-274 build window, recall shown as completed, with a faint tick at idle. That completed status most likely means the truck passed inspection and received 0W-40 oil and a new fill cap, the default outcome. The special coverage would pay for a bottom-end failure for 10 years or 150,000 miles — and its capitalised sentence says a valvetrain or top end issue is not covered. Lesson: on this engine, "recall done" and "engine replaced" are two very different histories, and the difference decides who pays for the next one.

Scenario 2: the 2019 F-150 that bangs into gear. Suppose an owner has harsh shifts and occasional hard downshifts on a 10-speed F-150 with no open recall against the VIN. Nothing in the recall set covers a 2019 truck for this: 22V-188 and 25V-169 are 2021 populations, 26V-237 is the 2015-2017 6-speed, and 26V-402 is a park pawl action. The nearest open investigation, EA26-001, is a different transmission on an older truck. Lesson: a symptom that matches a famous recall is not the same as being in one, and the first step is the VIN lookup, not the forum thread.

Scenario 3: the 5.0L that started ticking after an oil change. Suppose a 5.0L F-150 develops a tick at idle shortly after a service, no light, no drivability change. SSM 52334 describes that exact pattern on that engine and instructs that no repairs should be attempted, which makes it the document to have open before authorising anything — though it does not license ignoring every future noise. Lesson: a document that names your symptom is worth more than any estimate, and the way to use it is to match the sound, not the word.

Where a free sound check fits, and where it does not

Full disclosure again: this is our side of the page, so check it against the site. Pulscar's sound check asks you to record 30 seconds of the engine running on any phone and emails a report back in about 10 minutes — an engine health score, a system-by-system status, a second pass that reviews the first, and honest repair-cost ranges. No payment, no card, no subscription, and nothing to cancel because nothing starts. If a clip cannot support a confident answer, the report says so instead of guessing.

It also cannot do most of what matters on this page, and the honest way to write that is to list it. It reads no OBD2 trouble codes, because codes are stored data a microphone cannot reach. It cannot clear a check engine light or show live sensor data. It does not know your VIN, so it cannot tell you whether 25V-274 or 24V-635 applies to your truck — NHTSA's free lookup does that, and it is the first thing to run. It is engine-framed, so a brake pulsation or a suspension clunk sits outside it, and it is no substitute for a physical inspection before you hand over money.

What it is good for is the half of this page scanners cannot reach: a truck making a sound the paperwork says to take seriously.

What we looked for and did not find

Naming the gaps is part of the method; each was an actual search on 12 September 2026.

No comparable sales denominator. Ford reports F-Series as one line including Super Duty; Chevrolet reports Silverado in a way that mixes 1500 with heavy duty. Without both, there is no rate to compute, and this page computes none.

One coverage programme for lifters, and it is not the 5.3. NHTSA's bulletin flat file now ships in year ranges rather than one archive, and we read all four of them, 2010 through 2026. Filtering every Chevrolet and GMC record whose text contains "lifter" returns exactly one customer satisfaction programme: N232413430, and its vehicle rows are model year 2023 only — Silverado 1500, Sierra 1500, Tahoe, Suburban, Yukon and Yukon XL. Nothing in that file offers a 5.3L owner a programme. Absence in a file is weaker than a document, but it is a check anyone can repeat.

No median repair cost. The extractor worked and the data did not survive being read by hand, so the number is absent rather than wrong.

No verdict on which truck is more reliable. Anyone who tells you the gap is a single number has divided by something they did not check.

No claim that a noise caused a crash. Some complaints here carry NHTSA's crash flag and also describe a sound. Those are single reports in which both facts appear; we computed no rate and assert no causation.

Your action plan before you hand over money

Before you look at any truck, 5 minutes, free:

1. Get the VIN from the listing and run it through NHTSA's own free recall lookup. It answers per vehicle, the only granularity that matters, and it is the one check no article can do for you.
2. Write down the engine and the build date, not just the model year. Every scope on this page is stated in build dates.
3. If it is a 6.2L GM truck, note whether it falls inside 1 March 2021 to 31 May 2024. If it is a 2.7L F-150, note whether it falls inside 1 May to 31 October 2021.

At the truck: 4. Start it cold and listen before anyone touches the throttle. Both manufacturers list a noise among the warning signs, and GM lists it first. 5. Drive it long enough to get a cold shift and a warm shift. On the F-150 the drivetrain is the largest complaint bucket by a distance. 6. Ask for the current open-campaign printout for that VIN, dated today, not the vehicle history report. Two manufacturers have now recalled their own recall repairs.

If you already own one: 7. If the engine has been replaced or repaired under a programme, keep every document. Both programmes run 10 years or 150,000 miles and both transfer to the next owner, which makes the paperwork part of the truck's value. 8. If you paid for a covered repair yourself, both reimbursement windows have closed — GM's on 31 May 2026, Ford's on 30 June 2026 — so read how to dispute a repair bill and warranty extensions owners do not know about before accepting that as final. 9. If the truck has a new noise and no light, get the sound characterised before authorising a teardown, and read what a diagnostic should cost first.

Neighbours: F-150 engine knocking, Silverado engine ticking, engine knocking, ticking noises, noises in NHTSA complaints, dealer versus independent, signs of overcharging.

Sources and documents

Primary documents only. Every population, date, build window, coverage term and quoted phrase above was taken from the document itself, downloaded from NHTSA's server and read as text. Claims marked 🟢 rest on an item below; ⚪ marks owner reports and our own counts.

1. NHTSA 25V-274 / GM N252494000 — amended Part 573 report, 22 July 2025. The 597,571 total, the 107,244 Silverado 1500 and 153,637 Sierra 1500 figures, the 3 percent estimate, the 1 March 2021 to 31 May 2024 window, the "other engines are not included" sentence, the root causes, the warning-sign list and the 28,102 field complaints. Report (PDF)
2. GM Special Coverage N252494003, revision 04, May 2026. The 10-year, 150,000-mile term "regardless of ownership", the neglect exclusion, the capitalised valvetrain exclusion and the 31 May 2026 reimbursement deadline. Bulletin (PDF)
3. NHTSA 24V-635 / Ford 24S55 — Part 573 report, 23 August 2024. The 90,736 population, the 1 percent estimate, "47,719 Ford F-150 vehicles are affected", the 2.7L Nano EcoBoost scope, the 1 May to 31 October 2021 window, the intake valve defect, the warning description and the engine-cycle remedy. Report (PDF)
4. Ford Customer Satisfaction Program 24N12, Supplement #2, 30 March 2026. The no-cost one-time long block replacement, "10 years of service or 150,000 miles from the warranty start date", the "through June 30, 2026" fallback, transfer to later owners and the 91,093 US population. Bulletin (PDF)
5. NHTSA Engineering Analysis EA25-007, opening resume, opened 23 October 2025. Population 286,051, the 1,157 reports of L87 bearing failure of which "173 are outside of the scope of recall 25V-274", and the model years listed. Resume (PDF)
6. NHTSA Engineering Analysis EA26-005, opening resume, opened 20 August 2026. Population 997,743, the 499 post-remedy complaints split 473 oil change and 26 engine replacement, and GM's own 6,953. Resume (PDF)
7. NHTSA Engineering Analysis EA26-001, opening resume, opened 30 January 2026. Population 1,270,970, the 329 owner questionnaires, the 60 percent interview rate and the 43 percent wheel-lockup figure. Resume (PDF)
8. NHTSA 26V-237 / Ford 26S28 — Part 573, 14 April 2026. 1,392,935 model year 2015-2017 F-150s with the 6R80, the range-sensor defect and the PCM calibration remedy. Report (PDF)
9. NHTSA 22V-188 / Ford 22S15 — Part 573, amended 5 April 2022. 47,084 model year 2021 F-150s, 10R80 transmissions without Auto Start-Stop, built 28 July to 20 December 2021, and the neutral-shift defect description. Report (PDF)
10. NHTSA 25V-169 / Ford 25S24 — Part 573, 14 March 2025. 567 vehicles, 100 percent estimated with the defect, and the sentence about the 22S15 remedy recorded as completed but not installed correctly. Report (PDF)
11. NHTSA 24V-797 / GM N242454440 — Part 573, amended 28 October 2024. 461,839 vehicles, 66,897 Silverado 1500s, the diesel scope, the control-valve wear cause, the "drivers may notice harsh shifting" warning and the fifth-gear remedy. Report (PDF)
12. NHTSA 26V-083 / GM N252516560 — Part 573, 12 February 2026. 1,055 vehicles, 100 percent estimated with the defect, and the finding that they "may not have received the correct transmission control module software as remedy for recall 24V797". Report (PDF)
13. NHTSA 26V-402 / Ford 26S48 — Part 573, 24 June 2026. 741,195 vehicles, 82,570 model year 2021 F-150s with park-by-wire and 10R80 transmissions, built 8 January 2020 to 8 October 2021. Report (PDF)
14. Ford SSM 52334, 6 March 2024. 2011-2024 Mustang and F-150 with the 5.0L, the typewriter tick description, the 150°F and 1,700 rpm conditions, and "no repairs should be attempted". Communication (PDF)
15. Ford Customer Satisfaction Program 21B10, 2 March 2021. 2017-2020 F-150 with the 3.5L GTDI, the PCM reprogram for cam phaser rattle, and "in effect through March 31, 2022. There is no mileage limit". Bulletin (PDF)
16. Ford Customer Satisfaction Program 21N03, Supplement #3, 19 November 2021. Cam phaser replacement extended to 1 January 2023 conditional on a 21B10 reflash by 28 February 2022, and the proration table ending at 0 percent from 90,000 miles. Bulletin (PDF)
17. NHTSA 24V-851 / Ford 24S70 — Part 573, amended 25 July 2025. 2,490 vehicles of which 1,769 F-150s, 3.5L GTDI, misaligned engine cup plug and rapid oil leak. Report (PDF)
18. NHTSA 25V-198 / Ford 25S30 — Part 573, amended 25 July 2025. 4,356 vehicles of which 3,247 F-150s, the same condition on 2024-2025 vehicles. Report (PDF)
19. NHTSA 25V-344 / Ford 25S55 — Part 573, amended 13 June 2025. 156 vehicles total, 135 F-150s built 26 February to 10 March 2025, and the mis-machined connecting rod defect. Report (PDF)
20. NHTSA Engineering Analysis EA23-002, closing resume, opened 29 September 2023 and closed 31 October 2024 with recall 24V-635. Population 411,315, 1,066 unique vehicles with failure reports, and the May to October 2021 production "spike period". Resume (PDF)
21. GM Service Bulletin 15-06-01-002O, March 2023. Engine misfire and tick with DTC P0300 on the 5.3L (L83, L8B) and 6.2L (L86, LT1, LT4); note its model list reaches only the 2019 Silverado LD within our window. Bulletin (PDF)
22. NHTSA investigation flat file, downloaded 12 September 2026, used to enumerate every open and closed investigation against both nameplates rather than trusting a search page. Flat file (ZIP)
23. NHTSA complaints API, complaintsByVehicle, pulled 12 September 2026 for both nameplates, model years 2019-2024, using the model strings returned by NHTSA's own models endpoint for each year. Source of the 4,309 and 3,906 totals, the category shares and the word counts. Endpoint
24. NHTSA recalls API, recallsByVehicle, used only to enumerate candidate campaign numbers; every campaign cited above was then confirmed in its own Part 573 report, because this endpoint widens model years beyond what the filings say. Endpoint

The consumer-facing pages at nhtsa.gov, including the free VIN recall lookup we recommend throughout, refused every automated request on 12 September 2026. We did not work around that, so they are named in the text without a link.

Methodology. Campaign numbers, populations, production windows, remedy wording, coverage terms, exclusions and expiry dates come from the Part 573 reports and manufacturer bulletins listed above; investigation figures come from the ODI resumes. Complaint counts come from NHTSA's public complaints database for the F-150 and Silverado 1500, model years 2019 to 2024, pulled 12 September 2026 and de-duplicated by ODI number; those are unverified owner reports, and each count states the words its filter matched. No complaint rate, failure rate or per-vehicle ratio is computed anywhere on this page, because no comparable fleet denominator is published for either truck. Individual dollar figures are quoted from single complaints. Eligibility depends on your VIN and build date, so verify before authorising paid work.

Prices verified: September 2026 · Technical documents verified: September 2026 · Reviewed quarterly

Had the 25V-274 inspection done, or paid for an engine or transmission outside a programme? Email [email protected] with the year, engine, build date and odometer — owner data is how these pages get sharper.