This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
The contact's daughter owns a 2021 Ford Explorer. The contact stated that while his daughter was driving from a complete stop in a parking lot, the vehicle stalled. A message indicating a transmission failure was displayed. The vehicle failed to restart and was towed to an independent mechanic. The vehicle was not diagnosed and was towed to the dealer to be diagnosed. The dealer informed the contact's daughter that a diagnostic test cost would be charged because the vehicle was out of warranty. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 46,000.
A Police Officer's Ford Explorer Interceptor Hybrid SUV while driving had a vehicle malfunction where the rear wheels began to wobble/vibrate and while driving in a straight line with front wheels facing straight caused the vehicle to fishtail out of the control (loss of control to the rear wheels) and slam into a tree at approximately 50mph injuring the officer. Officer's injuries were broken left leg and two knee fractures. Upon further research, this incident may have been caused by the "rear bolt" fracture issue Ford is having with these specific Ford Explorers. This specific vehicle is under recall per the VIN. The Officer's safety was put at risk because the vehicle was most likely not recalled and fixed per the recall. The vehicle has not been inspected by manufacturer or any qualified/certified individual. No other issues or symptoms were present prior to this incident. The vehicle is available for inspection upon request with the BART Police Department in Oakland, CA.
The contact owns a 2021 Ford Explorer. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 23V675000 (Power Train) however, the part to do the recall repair was unavailable. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was not made aware of the issue. The contact had not experienced a failure. VIN tool confirms parts not available.
The contact owns a 2021 Ford Explorer. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 21V735000 (Back Over Prevention), 22V255000 (Power Train), and 23V675000 (Power Train) however, the parts to do the recall repairs were not yet available. The local dealer was contacted and determined that parts were not yet available. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the issue and confirmed that parts were not yet available. The contact had not experienced a failure. VIN tool confirms parts not available.
The contact owns a 2021 Ford Explorer. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 23V675000 (Power Train) however, the part to do the recall repair was unavailable. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was not made aware of the issue. The contact had not experienced a failure. VIN tool confirms parts not available.
- Naples, FL, USA
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UNKNOWN My rear axle bolt may fracture. and this repair still has not been done. and Ford doesn't know. when the part will be in, I'm in fear. for my safety.
The contact owns a 2021 Ford Explorer. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 23V635000 (Power Train) however, the part to do the recall repair was not yet available. The local dealer was made aware of the issue. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the issue and confirmed parts were not yet available. The contact had not experienced a failure. VIN tool confirms parts not available.
The contact owns a 2021 Ford Explorer. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 23V675000 (Power Train) however, the part to do the recall repair was unavailable. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the issue. The contact stated while driving approximately 60 MPH, the vehicle started to vibrate. The contact stated that there were no warning lights illuminated. The contact stated that she drove the vehicle to a dealer and was informed that the failure could not duplicated. The vehicle had not been repaired. Additionally, the contact stated that when the vehicle was shifted into park(P), the parking brake automatically activated, and the contact did not manually set the parking brake. The failure mileage was approximately 28,000. VIN tool confirms parts not available. The contact took the vehicle to recall repaired and adjustments needed from the previous recall. The dealer stated the recall repair could not be done because they did not have the tool to perform the repairs. When the vehicle was delivered, it was detached from the part of the third row seats.
Vehicle loses power while on freeway when 4WD, Pre-Collision Assist, Hill Start Assist, and other warning messages display. Vehicle lost power approximately 5 times while registering message, but messages have displayed approximately 40-50 times in the past week before being services. Vehicle dealership repair facility inspected and diagnosed a bad 4WD module.
I bought the car in 12/21/21 brand new from Hopkins Ford in Illinois drive the car just for work and school, we serviced the car and well mantained with all needed services around 1000 miles I start noticed lots of clunking noises coming out of the car right after exit the vehicle and took it to 2 diferent ford dealerships and they said was normal, which wasn't. kept driving the car I had also an issue with the panoramic roof having leaks and wasn't fixed too, around 15000 miles start noticed delay on the transmission when moving from park to reverse and also a very loud clunking noise, when moving from reverse to drive noticed de delay and and pull when the transmission engaged to drive, I use the highway around 1 time a week and noticed loose of power when accelerating so I decided to take it to the Hopkins dealership, initially they diagnose just need an update and will be ready in 5 days, they never contacted me and I call them back to ask the status because I need the SUV for my family and they gave me a Pickup TRUCK as loaner and is useless for my family, they told me it will be another 4 days, than at day 20 they said they have to replace the whole transmission, and I forced them to give me a another EXPLORER as loaner because I need that size car, I drove it and at day 29 called me and asked me for their car back and they gave me again a F150 but my car was not ready and will take another 4-5 days, magically my car was ready next day !! day 30 really? they dropped at home but with scratches in door panels and dents in the paint. they I drove the car for.3 miles and the car had the same issues, they told me to drive it for 500 miles and transmission will adapt, I drove it for 1000 miles and now the problems still and now are worse even with new transmission, vibration while driving on highway, clunking noises and lose of power, I dropped the car at the dealership already for a week and is no estimated time on repairs or how long this will take
The contact owns a 2021 Ford Explorer. The contact stated that upon starting or while driving the vehicle, the front camera screen image was black or gray before going blank. Additionally, the navigation system was inoperable. There were no warning lights illuminated. While driving at undisclosed speeds, the transmission was slipping. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer, where it was diagnosed that coolant had intruded into the transmission. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was contacted and referred the contact to the NHTSA Hotline. The failure mileage was approximately 50,000.
While driving on a freeway on Sep 15th 2023, wrench light showed up and immediately vehicle speed dropped from 65 to 30mph. This is second time this issue has happened and luckily my family survived accidents. First incident occured on Aug 13th 2023, after which i towed my vehicle to dealership. They repaired and said its safe to drive now. But issue is recurring. Please help me on this as I am reporting this issue second time on NHTSA. I reported first incident also which happened on Aug 13,2023
I bought a new Ford Explorer XLT in 2021. I was driving with my kids on highway 101 at 70mph on 08/13/2023, wrench symbol came up and car speed immediately dropped down from 70mph to 30mph. Luckily the driver behind was very attentive and an accident was avoided and we were saved. After that car went into limp mode and had to be towed away. My car just have over 13k miles on it and is under every warranty. This wrench warning lamp came once on 07/31/2023 without impacting vehicle speed. I took the car to Ford dealership for inspection on 08/01/2023. After 3 days of inspection they said some sensor needs to be replaced which they don't have in inventory and will call me back when it is available. They handed over car to me telling it is totally safe to drive as they don't see any issue with driving. Now when I told the dealership about the harrowing experience they turned a deaf ear and said we will look into it without even caring to provide an answer. I insisted on providing a loner vehicle as they dont have a timeline on fixing the issue.I trusted the ford mechanics and ended up paying towing expenses for over 100 miles and best of all luckily survived. Me and my family are still in this shock.
This vehicle has a major defect and is unsafe to operate. The rear differential has only 1 rear bolt and is completely inadequate for the performance and duty of the car. It can break and cause gerat injury or death if it fails. It puts anyone operating and in the car at great risk of injury or death if the only remaining rear bolt breaks, dislogding the drive shaft and half shafts in catastrophic failure. I have had the vehicle inspected and compared to the 2020 Ex ST which has 2 rear bolts and my 2021 only has 1 rear differential bolt. This is a major defect and major safety concern. Lets not wait for someone to get injured or die. Thank you. [XXX] INFORMATION Redacted PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6).
Numerous times over the recent 2 months, I have experienced different issues with my 2021 Ford Explorer. The vehicle was purchased used in 2022 with less than 10,000 miles on it. It currently has 36k miles. When the vehicle is stopped but in drive and then accelerated to merge into traffic, the vehicle stalls and will not engage. The accelerator has to be pressed repeatedly to get the vehicle to begin moving again. This can take anywhere from 2-3 presses and 10-20 seconds. This creates a hazard for moving traffic and a safety issue. This occurs repeatedly with no warning beforehand. The vehicle has no lights to reflect an issue. Additionally, while the vehicle has been parked and shut-off, the electronics will turn on. On two separate occasions, the lights have turned on on their own and the radio has done the same; there was nobody in the car either. Over the past weekend, while driving down the road, no rain or water on windshield, and the wipes started. The vehicle persistently has a blue screen during backup. There is a concern for the electronics as a whole with all of the issues occurring. When accelerating on the highway/interstate, often times, an odd smell can be sensed, as if the EcoBoost is not functioning appropriately. The recall for rear axle bolt was repaired by Ford in Yukon, OK, and was informed that is the only recall currently with a repair available. The vehicle is available for inspection, as necessary.
The recall that was previously issued for this issue was removed by the dealer because of 'many complaints from owners about the software fix'. The dealer told me that Ford was working on it and they would update later. However, you, on this website, will list this vehicle as 'recall completed'. Not sure why the disconnect. Also, for this vehicle, the rear subframe bushing failed last fall and was replaced under warranty. This bushing has failed again and I have an upcoming appt to have it fixed. This issue MUST be addressed by NHTSA as this is a severe safety issue that you are NOT pushing Ford hard enough to address. For 2023, Ford is producing 'some' Explorer ST models with the two bolt system (that is not under this recall), however, some are still being produced with the one bolt. The 2021-2022 models were, mostly, all made with the one bolt setup. The Fix is to simply use the correct rear subframe (Ford is doing this for owners that complain/push this issue, which I'll be doing now that this has happened twice). Please call me if you need details.
I had my suv service recall done on 6/04/22 for rear axle bolt fractures. When I got to driving my suv the transmission was acting funny, it was shifting up and down different than it was. So I took it back, and they said it had to get use to my driving. So it seemed ok in a couple of days. Then all of a sudden I was at a stop light one day and it wouldn-??t shift out of first gear.so we pulled over to a parking lot, we went in and had lunch, after lunch we tried driving it and it seemed fine. And it was ok until about 3/08/23 when we were almost got home from a shopping trip when all of a sudden it just started making noise and acted different shifting. So I took it to my ford dealer, I asked them to look at it and tell me what they wanted to drive it or not.they said not drive it, so they gave me a loaner car. So I checked with them a couple of times and they had not looked at it. So after not looking at my suv for 30 days I got mad and traded in. So I don-??t know for sure what happened to my suv I think it was in transmission or driveline.there was no warning lights or codes they told me when I dropped it off
After receiving a Ford issued recall for a potential rear axle bolt fracture, the dealer reprogrammed the PCM per Ford's reported repair solution. After this PCM update, the vehicle would randomly slam to a complete stop while driving. It happened several times with 3 different drivers (myself, my wife, and my son), each happening at 30-35 mph or less. It was usually preceeded by an audible clicking sound, but not always. We took the vehicle to the dealership several times, but they said they were not able to reproduce the issue, and continually returned the vehicle to us despite our grave concern for high risk of crash and injury. We even contacted Ford's customer service and legal departments several times, who ultimately refused to allow us to continue using a loaner vehicle and demanded that we return the loaner and retake possession of our Explorer because they said they had not received any other similar complaints, and their field engineer could not reproduce the issue and cleared the vehicle as safe, although Ford was never able to supply us with service records proving the repairs they purported despite our repeated inquiries. Ultimately, the issue happened again, and slammed while driving down a hill at about 40-50 mph, but this time the slamming was immediately followed by seemingly disengaging the drivetrain and causing the vehicle to roll downhill with no ability to accelerate, ultimately causing me to roll into a utility pole. Ford has since repurchased the vehicle, but given the severe safety risk associated with this issue and Ford's poor handling of our situation, I wanted others and the NHTSA to be aware in case other similar issues are reported in a effort to protect others from potential injury, especially in light of the increasing number if PCM-related issues and recalls reported against Ford...one of which was a PCM recall pertaining to our reported issue, but was not issued until after our repurchase was complete.
The contact owns a 2021 Ford Explorer. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 22V255000 (Power Train) however, the part to do the recall repair was not yet available. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The dealer was made aware of the issue. The manufacturer was not made aware of the issue. The contact had not experienced a failure. Parts distribution disconnect.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Stafford, VA, USA