The ’97 Mountaineer is a thinly disguised version of the ’96 Ford Explorer. Ford’s Lincoln-Mercury division complained that without a sport-ute, it probably lost 35,000 sales last year.

It’s been a busy June for Ford on the recall front, with three major safety missives to start off the month and, now, a fourth recall for over 304,600 Explorer SUVs and Lincoln Aviator SUVs over ...