For some truck enthusiasts, nothing beats the Ford F-150. This truck has been one of the automaker’s most popular vehicles since its introduction in 1948 and continues to be the best-selling truck in America. The F-150 is still rolling, as production has resumed at Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant in Michigan. This comes just one week after a supplier-related disruption brought the facility’s assembly line to a full stop.
The supply issue also affected F-150 production at Ford’s Kansas City plant. Company CEO Jim Farley says the issue has been resolved. As of this writing, Ford has not revealed the supplier involved, and the company says the recent disruption was unrelated to the aluminum shortage that affected its truck production earlier in 2025. But even with the two factories up and running again, Farley said the interruption will affect Ford’s wholesale figures for the third quarter of the year.
But the F-150’s production halt did not come from out of nowhere, as F-150 assembly at Ford’s Kansas City facility was interrupted several times in September due to parts shortages. In fact, the plant had lost 15 F-150 shifts since the beginning of the month; workers were being told the cancellations were related to a lack of parts. The Dearborn plant’s shutdown also gave Ford a chance to carry out facility repairs while production was already stopped.
Ford has faced several F-Series production problems
Ford was attempting to build up its F-Series inventory when the latest production disruption hit in September 2026. The company had about 52 days’ worth of F-Series trucks in stock at the end of the previous quarter, below its target of 55 to 65 days. The production halt meant that Ford lost more time it could have spent getting its truck inventory back up to its preferred level.
An aluminum shortage affecting Ford occurred after a September 2025 fire at Novelis’ facility in New York. Novelis is a global supplier of sustainable aluminum and the world’s largest recycler of aluminum. The resulting disruption affected production of Ford’s F-Series trucks, and the company estimated it could lose production of as many as 100,000 pickups through the end of 2025. A second fire at the same facility caused even more problems, though Ford managed to purchase aluminum from other Novelis locations.
While those production challenges continued into 2026, the issues weren’t always related to the aluminum disruption. In May, Ford temporarily stopped F-150 assembly at the Dearborn plant while a damaged hood die was repaired at a nearby stamping facility. The die is used to shape metal sheets into body panels like hoods, which means it had to be repaired before production could continue. Ford was already planning to build more than 50,000 additional F-Series trucks during 2026 to recover lost production, so the May shutdown interrupted that work, and this latest shutdown is certainly not helping matters.
