2020 FORD F-150 — Complaint #1751617
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SUSPENSION:FRONT:CONTROL ARM:UPPER BALL JOINT filed June 10, 2021
NHTSA complaint #1751617 (ODI reference 11420468) concerns a 2020 FORD F-150 and was filed on June 10, 2021. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 5, 2021. The vehicle had 8,600 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Wisconsin based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as suspension:front:control arm:upper ball joint, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same FORD F-150 cohort independently describe similar suspension:front:control arm:upper ball joint failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2020 FORD F-150 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
While backing out of a residential driveway, While turning the steering wheel the Right front wheel caught the edge of the curb and had a catastrophic failure of the right front upper ball joint. Wheel and knuckle collapsed under the wheel well. The vehicle is new with 8600 miles on it. While removing the wheel in order to tow it, found there was no torque nut on the balljoint stud. It was transported to a certified Ford dealership where it is being evaluated for repairs. Suspension, steering, alignment, sensors are non operational and damaged. The nut was either never put on, or was never tightened. No prior warnings were given. Had we been driving at speed I have no doubt we would have sustaine major injury or worse. Dealership has reported documentation of the aformentioned problem, and pictures sent to Ford administration with no response yet.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1751617 |
| ODI Number | 11420468 |
| Date Filed | June 10, 2021 |
| Failure Date | June 5, 2021 |
| VIN | 1FTEW1EP7LF |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.