Ford COO Kumar Galhotra Says Field Service Action Costs Won’t Go Down Immediately

Ford has been mired in quality issues for years now, resulting in soaring warranty costs that eat into profits, not to mention more recalls being issued than any other automaker. Things haven’t improved on the recall front through 2025 thus far, but many of those actions are simply expansions of previously-issued recalls, at least. While The Blue Oval has made strides in terms of initial quality in the most recent model year, it also doesn’t expect its field service action costs – which include recalls and customer satisfaction programs – to decrease anytime soon.

“As a result, the expected FSA cost improvement will not impact the bottom line as quickly as improvement in coverage costs,” Ford COO Kumar Galhotra said during the automaker’s Q2 earnings call with investors. “There is a lag effect until the majority of our car park reflects vehicles designed and built under the strengthened processes, but there are early indicators that are encouraging. For example, the FSA costs for ’24 and ’25 model year vehicles are at least 50 percent better than ’20 and ’22 model year at similar time in service.”

Indeed, Ford continues to be plagued by quality issues from prior model years, though Galhotra recently stated that the 2025 model year has shown progress in that regard thus far. The executive also noted that The Blue Oval’s “latest zero- and three-months in-service metrics are tracking towards our strongest performance in over 10 years,” though he also added that “we are not satisfied with the current level of recalls or the number of vehicles impacted. We are working to reduce the cost of these recalls.”

“The increase in recalls reflects our intensive strategy to quickly find and fix hardware and software issues and go the extra mile to help protect customers,” Galhotra said. “Ford has more than doubled its team of safety and technical experts in the past two years and significantly increased testing to failure on critical systems in current Ford vehicles such as powertrains, steering and braking. Insights from this testing are being incorporated into current production.”