Ford Should Give Back Its J.D Power Quality Award

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jul 8, 10:28AM EDT

Quick Read

Ford (F) scored 152 on J.D. Power's quality study, beating the 175 industry average, yet logged a record 152 recalls last year.
Kelley Blue Book reports Ford is on pace for its second-worst recall year, with 741,000 SUVs and pickups recalled this year alone.
Ford's May 2026 sales fell 13.6% year over year, with year-to-date sales down 11.2% to roughly 827,000 vehicles.
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Ford Should Give Back Its J.D Power Quality Award — © Natursports / Shutterstock.com

Ford (NYSE: F | F Price Prediction) should give back its JD Power 2026 U.S. Initial Quality Study award for the best Mass Market Brand. It scored 152 on a scale that rates brands based on problems per 100 vehicles. The award is based on 10 major yardsticks of quality. This is, in turn, based on the first 90 days of ownership by those surveyed. The average among all brands was 175.

Ford has huge product quality problems. The only defense it has to claim to keep the Power rating is that perhaps Ford’s vehicles were well built in the period from June 2025 through May 2026, when the study was in the field. Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO commented on the award, “Many doubted that an American company with a huge American workforce could compete with the world’s best on quality, let alone reach the top.” Actually, many doubted Ford could make it.

Ford’s recall record last year was astonishingly high and set a record. Ford issued 152 recalls, which was a record for any year. Farley has claimed that those were for vehicles built in earlier years. For many of these recalls, that is accurate.

Ford’s recalls this year are off to an amazing pace. Recently, it recalled 43,000 Mach-E EVs. It also recalled several gas-powered Mustangs. The total of the two was about 110,000 vehicles. A few days ago, it recalled 741,000 SUVs and pickups.

Kelley Blue Book reports, “Ford on Pace for Second-Worst Recall Year.” Ford cannot say all of these vehicles were purchased before June 2025.

The fact of the matter is that Ford did well for a snapshot of time, with data from surveys of a modest number of owners. Based on a much larger universe of Ford owners, the numbers are terrible.

Ford’s sales are falling this year. It is not possible to give a single reason why. May sales dropped 13.6% year over year to 190,828. For the year, they are down 11.2% to 826,810.

Ford should give back its U.S. Initial Quality Study. And it should also stop the bragging.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.