Ford has issued a recall for 242,669 Maverick small trucks from model years 2022 through 2024 because their taillights can fail. The issue affects rear position lamps that illuminate in the dark but not the stoplights that signal other drivers a car is braking.

Ford tells the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that the culprit is the software within the Body Control Module. It can falsely detect current overload to one or both taillamps and deactivate them.

Dealers will update the software to fix the issue. But Mavericks don’t receive over-the-air software updates, so owners must bring them in for the patch.

By law, dealers don’t charge for recall repairs.

Automakers recall many cars to fix safety defects, sometimes more than once. While automakers try to reach every owner to ask them to bring the vehicle in for repair, they rarely reach them all. Millions of vehicles on American roads need free recall repairs. Check the easy VIN tool at our recall center to find out if your car is one of them.