When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Yes, there was/is a recall. It stated that they would change the arms out, however when I took mine in, they looked at it and said: "Eh... they look alright." The keys fell out long before that, and of course they didn't swap anything. I kept the paper work though where they refused to swap them despite the recall, and while nothing has happened so far, if anything does, I will let them know!
Only problem I ever had was when I dumped load of snow off the roof at a stop sign, and turned the wipers on...........stripped the splines on the aluminum arm, drivers side............bought a new one, installed it, the key fell out a few weeks later............almost 70 K on a 2022.........no other wiper problems.
Mine are. It doesn't take a lot of force to move the arms and feel the splines skip.
There was a recall but it was NOT do to missing keys. As stated by others, the keys main purpose is to easily position the arm during assembly. The recall was for a batch of arms that had improper spline height do to manufacturing reasons. The recall involved specific date ranges. If the dealership did not see that recall associated with your truck, then it doesn't apply to yours.
If you buy replacement wiper arms they will come with new keys. If you do not want the new keys to fall out, you'll have to use some sort of adhesive to help assure thay they stay put. The keys have been gone from my wiper arms for at least 5 years without issue.
The woodruff keys fell out of my 22 F-250 wiper arms probably within a year or 18 months of getting the new truck. I found them lying in the recess under the wiper and decided to glue them back into place. My theory was the splines will keep the wiper moving but the added key will provide extra drive force if needed and keep the splines from rounding off. YMMV
Well, just a couple days ago I got a recall notification for this. It said they won't have parts for it until June/ July.
What is the recall#? I have yet to see any wiper arm recalls directly related to wiper arm keys. Both wiper arm recalls (there have been 2 that I'm aware of) have been do to manufacturing defects of certain batches. The first recall wiper arms were found to have improper spline height. The most recent appears to be a defect in the latch retention plate and spline height.
I also got the wiper arm recall in the mail three days ago for my '22. Safety recall 26S24 or NHTSA recall 26V204 for those doubters out there. My truck was not covered by the earlier recall for the wiper arm spline inspection that @chadstickpoindexter had done on his truck.
My wiper recall notice also said Remedy Not Available until the end of June. I have three other outstanding recalls with no remedy available. The first one came out July 2025 with an expected remedy available in the third quarter of 2025 (July, August, September). That didn't happen. These three recalls are all software related so that looks like a perfect candidate for an OTA remedy rather than a trip to the dealership. It's good that Ford is identifying problems but they need to be developing solutions and remedies to go along with the Recall list.
Last edited by Lariat Driver; Apr 25, 2026 at 02:15 PM.
Yes, I agree.........the key would add more support between the wiper arm, and the wiper motor..........but really all the keys do is put the wiper arms in the correct position.........