Just as it was last year, the epidemic of failing rearview cameras is still in season, and Mitsubishi’s best-selling almost-SUVs are the latest to be infected. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced a new recall impacting tens of thousands of Mitsubishi Outlander and Outlander PHEV compact crossovers, with the 2025 and 2026 model years under the spotlight. This follows recent recalls for similar issues in Ford, GM, Stellantis, Volkswagen, and Honda vehicles, among others. Why is this issue so widespread? It may be that, with the exception of Ford, all of the abovementioned automakers’ rearview camera equipment predominantly comes from Bosch, and that applies to Mitsubishi too.
Small Percentage of Mitsubishi Outlanders Defective
Mitsubishi
While the NHTSA recall report states that 67,146 vehicles are potentially involved in this recall, only around 1 percent are estimated to be defective. Since plug-in hybrids are still less popular than traditional combustion vehicles, the vast majority of the recalled vehicles are equipped with the latter powertrain, with 65,940 units versus just 1,206 PHEVs. As for the crux of the issue, the report states that “improper software programming” may cause the Alliance In-Vehicle Infotainment system to suffer symptoms including failing to boot, freezing, restarting unexpectedly, or unintentional screen scrolling. The bug may also result in the screen completely blacking out, but all of these maladies have the same outcome: non-compliance with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard #111 for Rear Visibility, which requires all vehicles weighing under 10,000 pounds that were produced from May 1, 2018, onward to have a working backup camera system. Without it, the risk of a crash and/or an injury to a pedestrian is increased. Despite how simple the problem sounds, it’s been a thorn in Mitsubishi’s side for a while.
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The automaker was first informed of the problem in October 2025 through a field report from our northerly neighbors, Canada, which described the 12.3-inch touchscreen in an Outlander as becoming intermittently unresponsive. This was the first report in North America, and Mitsubishi immediately opened an investigation. In November, while waiting for the recently replaced faulty infotainment unit to be shipped to Japan, additional reports from Canada were received, and as the investigations progressed until early last month, engineers identified potential software programming issues, leading to the decision that a non-compliance recall was necessary. Thus far, Mitsubishi’s offices have received 39 warranty claims and one field report in the U.S. describing similar problems, but the automaker hasn’t always found the same underlying programming issues in every impacted vehicle it’s come across. Nevertheless, a fix is coming soon.
What Mitsubishi Outlander Owners Need to Know
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All vehicles produced after July 28th, 2026, have reportedly been updated with new software, and the same treatment will come to Outlander owners whose vehicles were produced before then later this month. Dealers will be notified on the 9th, and owners should be notified from the 24th. If you don’t want to wait, VINs affected under NHTSA recall 26V549 will already be searchable on the same day dealers are officially brought up to speed.
