2012 Ford Explorer
This year drew an ordinary 822 complaints for a Ford Explorer — the model's median is 416. What they were about is the unusual part: 34.9% of them mention power steering, against 9% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 2 of the Ford Explorer, which began in 2011 and ran to 2019. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 822 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 416 |
| Involving a crash | 10 |
| Involving a fire | 6 |
| Recalls | 7 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 4/5 |
| EPA combined | 20 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- power steering — 34.9% of this year's complaints, against 9% across the other years of this generation (3.9×).
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
Total loss of Electric power steering assistance while driving on the interstate.
Power Steering Assit is intermittent and Steering Efforts increase to an unsafe level.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 19V435000 SUSPENSION Fixed free of charge.
- 17E048000 WHEELS
- 15V171000 STRUCTURE Fixed free of charge.
- 14E001000 STEERING Fixed free of charge.
- 14V286000 STEERING Fixed free of charge.
- 21V746000 SUSPENSION Fixed free of charge.
- 24V031000 STRUCTURE Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Ford Explorer was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2012 Ford Explorer? What happened to yours?
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