Flat towing is one of those niche capabilities that quietly separates ordinary crossovers from vehicles the RV crowd actually cares about. Most unibody SUVs simply cannot do it because their transmissions, all-wheel-drive hardware, and electric power steering pumps aren’t built to spin freely behind a motorhome for six hours a day. So when Lincoln built a Corsair that could allegedly be towed with all four wheels on the ground, it was a genuinely unusual selling point for a compact luxury crossover. Now a proposed class action filed against Ford Motor Company says that feature was never as safe as advertised, and that Ford’s fix for the problem is simply deleting it.
The suit, Rogge v. Ford Motor Co., was filed July 30, 2026 in federal court in California and carries the case number 2:26-cv-08400. The plaintiff is represented by local counsel Patrice Bishop of Abraham, Fruchter & Twersky, LLP, and the complaint leans on California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act, its Unfair Competition statutes, and the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, the state’s version of a lemon law. The proposed class covers anyone who bought or leased a 2021 through 2025 Lincoln Corsair that was marketed as flat-towable, either in California or as a California resident who bought elsewhere.
According to the complaint, Corsair owners started receiving a corrective service notice around February 2025. The notice reportedly told them that despite what the digital owner’s manual said, actually using the flat-tow process could damage the powertrain. Ford’s proposed remedy wasn’t a repair in the traditional sense. It was a software update that turns the flat-tow function off entirely, permanently converting a car marketed with a rare and specific capability into one without it.
Why Flat Towing a Crossover Is Actually a Big Deal
Compact crossovers like the Corsair generally rely on an automatic transmission with an internal pump that only lubricates and pressurizes moving parts when the engine is running. Tow one behind a motorhome with the engine off and the wheels turning, and you can spin components that were never designed to move without oil pressure. All-wheel-drive hardware adds another layer of risk, since the transfer case and its clutch packs also expect the engine to be running before power gets routed to all four corners. That’s precisely why most flat-towable vehicles on the market are body-on-frame trucks and SUVs like the Jeep Wrangler, which can mechanically disconnect the drivetrain with a transfer case in neutral, rather than unibody crossovers that share bones with the Ford Escape.
That’s what makes the Corsair’s original marketing so notable. Lincoln apparently told buyers their crossover could do something almost nothing else in its class could, which is exactly the kind of feature that would sway a shopper cross-shopping a small luxury SUV against, say, a Jeep Grand Cherokee or a truck-based alternative better suited to dinghy towing. The lawsuit argues that promise carried real weight in the buying decision, and that losing it after the fact isn’t a minor inconvenience.
The Bill for a Feature That No Longer Exists
Setting a vehicle up for flat towing isn’t free. Owners typically need a base plate bolted to the vehicle’s frame or subframe, a tow bar, a supplemental braking system, and wiring to sync the towed vehicle’s tail lights with the motorhome. The lawsuit puts that outlay at anywhere from roughly $1,500 to more than $4,000 depending on the setup, and it argues that money becomes wasted once the software update takes the capability away. Owners who already sunk that cash into a Corsair now have hardware bolted to a vehicle that can no longer legally or safely use it, and Ford’s software fix does nothing to make them whole.
There’s also a diminished value argument buried in here that’s worth understanding if you own one of these SUVs. A flat-tow rating is the kind of niche spec that shows up in used listings and RV forums, and it can genuinely widen the pool of interested buyers when it’s time to sell. Strip that spec out after the fact, whether through a recall or a quiet software patch, and the resale pitch changes even if nothing about the vehicle’s daily drivability does. That’s the kind of value loss that’s difficult to put a number on until you’re the one trying to sell the car.
What This Means If You Own or Are Shopping for a Corsair
If you’re currently towing a 2021-2025 Corsair behind an RV, the practical advice is straightforward: check with a Lincoln dealer about whether your specific VIN received the corrective update, and don’t assume the digital owner’s manual is still accurate just because it hasn’t been updated on your end. If you’re shopping the used market for a Corsair specifically because you saw flat-tow capability listed as a feature, ask the seller directly whether the software update has already been applied, since that answer will tell you whether the feature you’re paying for actually still works. And if you’re weighing a new Lincoln purchase based on a towing spec sheet, this is a good reminder to ask for that claim in writing rather than trusting a glossy brochure.
This isn’t Ford’s only fresh headache with owners this year. The company’s 1.0-liter EcoBoost timing belt problems are pulling their own escalated federal scrutiny, and stacked next to this Corsair case, it starts to look like a pattern of engineering promises outrunning what the hardware can actually deliver once cars are in customers’ driveways. For a brand that’s been leaning on flagship halo builds like Lincoln’s one-off Navigator projects to argue it belongs in the luxury conversation, quietly disabling an advertised feature on one of its mainstream crossovers is exactly the kind of story that undercuts the pitch. Ford has not filed a public response to the complaint as of this writing, and the case is still in its earliest stages.
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