NHTSA Opens Two Ford Probes: Godzilla V8 Cam Wear and a Maverick Camera Fix
A petition says the 7.3L V8 can wear out its cam and lifters at idle, and NHTSA is checking whether a 2024 Maverick camera recall fixed anything.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened two separate inquiries into Ford trucks on Oct. 27. One examines a petition claiming Ford's 7.3-liter gas V8, nicknamed Godzilla, can wear out its valvetrain. The other asks whether a 2024 recall for frozen rearview camera images on the Maverick actually fixed the problem.
Neither case is a recall, and neither means NHTSA has found a defect. Both arrive days after Ford's 102,159-truck speedometer recall, one of five recalls in a single week. As we argued in our column on why recall counts mislead, volume says little on its own. These two cases are narrower: one questions a heavy-duty engine, the other the quality of a fix owners already received.
The Godzilla petition
The engine case is defect petition DP26011. The petition reached NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation on June 13. It alleges that oil pressure at low idle, around 6 psi by the petitioner's account, is too low to lubricate the roller lifters, wearing the rollers and camshaft lobes. The petition says that wear can end in engine failure and a sudden loss of power while driving.
The petitioner also claims Ford knows the cause and has released a calibration update that raises idle speed to about 1,000 rpm, without notifying owners or filing a recall. Those are the petitioner's allegations, and NHTSA hasn't evaluated them yet. The agency's summary lists a single reported incident and no crashes, fires, injuries, or deaths.
The petition names about 54,787 vehicles: 2021–2022 Ford E-350 vans plus 2021 F-59 and F-750 chassis. That's a narrow slice of where the engine lives. The 7.3L also powers the F-250 through F-650 and the F-53 motorhome chassis, none of which the petition covers. For 2027, Ford made it the standard gas engine in the F-250 and F-350 and rates it at 420 hp and 445 lb-ft, as detailed in our Silverado HD vs. Super Duty comparison.
A petition asks NHTSA to open a formal investigation. The agency can grant it, usually leading to a preliminary evaluation, or deny it. It hasn't said when it will decide.
The Maverick camera query
The second case, Recall Query RQ26004, revisits recall 24V684 from September 2024. Ford traced frozen rearview camera images on the Maverick to a memory leak in its Connected Touch Radio software and fixed it with a dealer-installed update. A frozen image while reversing can show a clear path behind the truck when there isn't one.
NHTSA says it has received five owner complaints alleging the image still froze after the remedy. The query covers about 273,301 Maverick and Maverick Hybrid pickups from the 2022–2024 model years. ODI stresses that the figure does not mean every one of those trucks is still defective.
One detail doesn't line up yet. Ford's 2024 recall covered about 144,500 Mavericks, Kelley Blue Book reported at the time, roughly half the query population, and the gap hasn't been explained. A recall query can close with no action, push Ford to revise the remedy, or lead to a new recall. The stakes are high for a truck that set a sales record in the third quarter, per our look at Ford's Q3 results.
What owners can do now
Ford hasn't publicly addressed either inquiry. Maverick owners who had the 24V684 update and still see a frozen camera image can file a complaint with NHTSA, which is how this query began. Owners of any 7.3L truck, named in the petition or not, can check for open recalls by VIN on NHTSA's recall lookup.
We'll update this story when NHTSA rules on the petition, escalates the Maverick query, or Ford responds.
