2026 Ram 1500 Recall: Parking & Daytime Running Lights May Fail/FMVSS 108

Chrysler filed this campaign on July 1, 2026, and does not yet have a repair for it. Owners of 12,592 Ram 1500 pickups will receive a letter at the end of July telling them their headlight wiring may fail, followed by a second letter at some unnamed later date telling them what the fix is.

Campaign 26V421000 covers 2026 model year trucks only. The defect is in the headlight wiring, and the symptom is parking lights and daytime running lights that flicker or stop working.

An interim notification with no remedy attached is a normal step when a manufacturer has confirmed a safety defect but has not finished validating the correction. It is also the stage at which owners have the least useful information and the most reason to pay attention.

The Issue

Daytime running lights and parking lights sit in the same forward assemblies as the low beams on the current Ram 1500, sharing a housing and a wiring harness connection. Chrysler attributes the fault to that wiring rather than to the LED elements themselves, which is why the stated remedy replaces headlight assemblies rather than reflashing a module.

Flicker is the diagnostic signature of a marginal electrical connection. A circuit that is fully open produces a dead lamp; a circuit that is intermittently open produces a lamp that comes and goes with vibration, thermal expansion, or load. Chrysler's language covers both outcomes, describing lights that may flicker on and off or fail outright.

The compliance issue is Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108, which governs lamps and reflective devices. Daytime running lights are required equipment that must operate whenever the vehicle is running, and a DRL that intermittently drops out does not meet that requirement regardless of whether the low beams still work.

Affected Models

Model	Model Year	Units
Ram 1500	2026	12,592

This is a narrow campaign by Ram standards. No 2500 or heavy-duty trucks are included, no 2025 trucks are included, and the 12,592-unit population suggests a bounded build window rather than a full model year of production.

Chronology and Investigation

Chrysler filed the campaign with NHTSA on July 1, 2026, under internal recall number 62D. VINs became searchable on NHTSA.gov beginning July 9.

Interim owner letters are expected to mail July 30, 2026. Those letters notify owners of the safety risk without providing a repair. A second mailing will follow once the final remedy is available, and Chrysler has not published a date for it.

This is the second lighting campaign against current Ram pickups inside six months. Campaign 26V059000, filed in February 2026, recalled 456,287 Ram and Jeep vehicles for a trailer tow module that could kill trailer lights and trailer brakes. The two are unrelated in mechanism, one being a tow module design fault and the other a headlight harness fault, but a buyer looking at a 2026 truck should be aware both exist.

Reported Incidents

NHTSA's campaign record lists no crashes, injuries, or fatalities. Chrysler has not published a warranty claim count or a field failure rate, which is typical for a campaign filed three weeks ago.

Because the campaign is this new, the incident record should be treated as incomplete rather than as evidence of low risk. Reports accumulate for months after a filing.

What Owners Should Do

VINs have been searchable on NHTSA.gov since July 9, 2026. Owners of 2026 Ram 1500 trucks should check theirs now rather than waiting for the letter.

There is no repair to schedule yet. The interim letter mailing July 30 confirms the risk; the remedy letter comes later. Owners can reach Chrysler customer service at 800-853-1403 and reference recall 62D.

In the meantime, a truck whose daytime running lights are flickering can be driven with the headlights switched on manually, which places the low beams on a separate circuit and restores forward conspicuity. That is a workaround for visibility, not a fix for the defect.

Symptoms to Watch For Before the Wiring Fails

A daytime running light that dims and recovers. Brightness that varies while the engine is running, particularly over rough pavement, indicates a connection that is losing contact under vibration.

One side out while the other works. Asymmetric failure isolates the fault to a harness or connector rather than to a shared control module.

Parking lights that do not come on with the switch. The park position failing while the headlight position works points at the specific circuit this campaign describes.

A lamp-out warning that appears and clears. The cluster raising a lighting fault intermittently is the truck reporting the same flicker the driver may not see from behind the wheel.

Moisture or corrosion visible at the headlight connector. Worth a look during any routine service, since it is the condition most likely to turn an intermittent fault into a permanent one.

How Long Will the Recall Repair Take?

Chrysler has not published a labor estimate, because the final remedy is not defined. The stated approach is inspection with replacement of the headlight assemblies as necessary.

If the eventual fix is a full assembly swap, expect a longer appointment than a typical recall, since headlight assemblies on this truck require fascia work to access and the replacements have to be aimed afterward. If Chrysler settles on a harness repair or a connector replacement, it will be considerably shorter. Owners will know when the remedy letter arrives.

Bottom Line

A flickering daytime running light is not a reason to park a truck, and 12,592 units is a small campaign against a model line that sells in the hundreds of thousands.

What makes it worth tracking is the timing. The 2025 and 2026 Ram 1500 carry an unusually dense first-years recall record: wheel hubs, tire pressure monitoring, the instrument cluster twice, the trailer tow module, and now headlight wiring. Each individual campaign is manageable, and the pattern is what a used buyer should be reading.

Anyone shopping a 2026 truck should run the VIN against NHTSA before signing, and should expect this particular campaign to remain open on the record until Chrysler publishes its remedy.

Find your Ram 1500 recall information: https://www.mopar.com/en-us/my-vehicle/recalls/recalls.html