2019 Ford Flex
This year drew an ordinary 234 complaints for a Ford Flex — the model's median is 139. What they were about is the unusual part: 39.7% of them mention prevention, against 0.8% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 234 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 139 |
| Involving a crash | 4 |
| Recalls | 4 |
| EPA combined | 18 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- prevention — 39.7% of this year's complaints, against 0.8% across the model's other years (51.3×).
- camera — 63.7% of this year's complaints, against 6.2% across the model's other years (10.2×).
- back over — 38.9% of this year's complaints, against 0.8% across the model's other years (50.2×).
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
BACK OVER PREVENTION: SENSING SYSTEM: CAMERA 90% of the time, the rearview camera image is blank or has a distorted image.
while reversing out of a parking space, the back over prevention camera became blurry, making it difficult for the contact to properly see an image in the rear of the vehicle. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not contacted. The f…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 18V548000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 24V951000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
- 25V695000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
- 25V732000 STRUCTURE Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Ford Flex 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 2019 Ford Flex? What happened to yours?
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