Jaguar Land Rover North America on June 25 announced it was recalling 250,857 vehicles due to a problem with the driver’s side airbag that may lead to deployment failure in the event of a crash.
In a recall report filed with the National Highway Safety Transportation Administration (NHTSA), Jaguar Land Rover said it had identified a problem with the clockspring in the driver’s side airbag caused by corrosion from repetitive micro-movements. The clockspring’s “fretting” could lead to increased resistance in the airbag’s electric circuit and result in deployment failure. The notice was posted to the NHTSA’s X account.
The recall was prompted by a noticeable increase in warranty claims from customers reporting the airbag warning light in their vehicles had illuminated, a precursor to potential airbag failure.
“Engineering analysis of the failure has shown that the airbag warning lamp will illuminate at least 300-400 miles before potential non-deployment,” the recall report stated.
Jaguar Land Rover North America will recall 69,685 Land Rover Range Rovers model years 2022–2026, 83,620 Land Rover Discovery sport utility vehicles (SUVs) model years 2021-2026, and 97,552 Land Rover Defenders model years 2020-2026. The recalled population of vehicles were manufactured between October 2019 and June 2026 at Jaguar Land Rover’s flagship Solihull Vehicle Assembly Plant in Solihull, England, as well as at its Nitra Vehicle Assembly Plant in Nitra, Slovakia.
The affected driver’s side airbag equipment was made by Alps Alpine Europe GmbH of Milton Keynes, England. Federal transportation officials said in the recall report that they have not received any reports of airbag deployment failures on Land Rover vehicles. Still, the decision was made in August 2025 to open a Product Safety and Compliance Committee (PSCC) investigation to determine the cause of the spike in the warning-light issues.
Engineers carried out experiments at Jaguar Land Rover and Alps Alpine, but were unable to narrow down the cause of the problem. In November 2025, Alps Alpine informed the PSCC that it had found oxides on the pins of some returned clockspring connectors, giving engineers clearer direction for their investigation.
Additional testing over the next five months confirmed that the clockspring connectors could experience fretting corrosion caused by micro-vibrations during normal vehicle use, the NHTSA said.
To remedy the problem, Jaguar Land Rover North America will apply a protective lubricant gel to the clockspring terminals on vehicles in the recalled population, a step that has been introduced in its assembly processes to prevent the issue from occurring in other vehicles.
Land Rover owners will be notified of the recall beginning Aug. 7. In the interim, Land Rover owners can contact the company’s customer service line at 800-637-6837 and reference internal recall number D120. The NHTSA’s recall number is 26V389.
