DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. will pay a penalty of up to $165 million to the US government for proceeding too slowly on a recall and failing to provide accurate recall information.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday that the civil penalty is the second largest in its 54-year history. Only the fine Takata paid for the defective airbag inflators was higher.

The agency said Ford was too slow to recall vehicles with the defective rearview cameras and did not provide the agency with complete information, which is required by the federal Motor Vehicle Safety Act.

Ford agreed to a consent order with the agency including a $65 million payment and $45 million in costs to comply with the law. Another $55 million will be deferred.

“Timely and accurate recalls are critical to keeping everyone safe on our roads,” said NHTSA Deputy Administrator Sophie Shulman. “When manufacturers fail to prioritize the safety of the American public and meet their obligations under federal law, NHTSA will hold them accountable.”

Under the order, an independent third party will monitor the automaker’s vehicle recall performance obligations for at least three years, and Ford must cooperate with the monitor.

Ford must also review all recalls from the past three years to ensure enough vehicles have been recalled and file new recalls if necessary.

The company also needs to review and change its recall decision-making process, improving the way it analyzes data to find safety defects in its vehicles. They also need to invest in technology to be able to track parts by vehicle identification numbers.

Ford says it will invest the $45 million in advanced data analytics, a new document system and a new testing lab.

“We appreciate the opportunity to resolve this issue with NHTSA and remain committed to continuous safety improvement,” Ford said in a statement.

By law, an automaker must notify NHTSA by filing a defect report within five business days of learning that a line of vehicles has a safety defect.

The problematic recall of more than 620,000 vehicles in the US, more than 700,000 in North America, took place in September 2020 for rearview cameras that can fail on several 2020 models, including the F-series pickup, the best-selling vehicle in the US .

In agency documents, NHTSA said Ford found warranty claims about the defective cameras from February to April 2020, and the matter was brought to a Ford committee in May of that year.

In July 2020, NHTSA contacted Ford about complaints received about defective cameras, and during an August 2020 meeting with NHTSA, Ford showed data for many 2020 models with high rates of camera failures.

The company issued the recall on September 23, 2020, and about a year later, NHTSA began investigating whether the recall was done quickly enough or included enough vehicles.

In 2022 and 2024, Ford issued two more recalls for the same problem, adding about 24,000 vehicles to the first camera recall.

In the consent order, NHTSA said its investigation found Ford violated several parts of the law by moving too slowly to recall vehicles with defective cameras, providing the agency with inaccurate or incomplete information and failing to file required quarterly reports on additional recalls .

The order said Ford disagreed with his claims.

For several years, high warranty and recall costs have hurt Ford’s profits, but the company says it is working to fix the problems.

The penalty does not end the disputes between Ford and NHTSA.

Earlier this year, the agency opened an investigation into a Ford SUV recall repair that fails to fix gasoline leaks that can cause engine fires. Investigators wrote in an April 25 letter to Ford that they have “significant safety concerns” about the March 8 recall of nearly 43,000 Bronco Sport and Escape SUVs.

Ford said in the documents that fuel injectors can crack, allowing gas or vapor to leak near hot engine parts, potentially causing fires and injuries. But the solution is to add a drain tube to divert the gas away from the hot surfaces and software that cuts off the fuel supply if it detects a leak.

In the letter, the agency’s Office of Defect Investigation wrote that, based on its review of the recall fix, it “believes that the fix program does not address the root cause of the problem and does not proactively require replacement of defective fuel injectors prior to their failure.”

Ford said it has a strong recall process and is committed to following the law, but it can always improve. He said he found out about the camera recall.

“We look forward to working with NHTSA and an independent third party to implement additional improvements,” Ford said.