2013 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #1783530
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:COOLING SYSTEM:FAN filed December 16, 2021
NHTSA complaint #1783530 (ODI reference 11444001) concerns a 2013 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on December 16, 2021. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 12, 2021. The vehicle had 129,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Michigan based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine and engine cooling:cooling system:fan, 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: yes, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. A complaint that flags a crash, fire, or fatality is escalated on NHTSA's internal review queue and factors more heavily into any Preliminary Evaluation decision on this make and model. 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 EXPLORER cohort independently describe similar engine and engine cooling:cooling system:fan 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 2013 FORD EXPLORER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2013 Ford Explorer. The contact stated they had taken their vehicle to a local dealer for a crack in the water pump which the dealer repaired, After the repair, the contact noticed a burning abnormal odor when turning on their heat from their a/c unit, which caused the contact and his passenger to become light-headed and dizzy. The contact drove to a local hospital where it was confirmed that the reason for the symptoms was due to high level of carbon monoxide levels. The contact called the local dealer about the abnormal odor but the dealer informed the contact they would not be able to fix the issue and inform the contact to reach out to the manufacturer for the failure. The contact decided to take the vehicle's independent mechanic who diagnosed the failure as small oil leaks around the engine that contribute to the odor coming into the interior of the vehicle. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was made of failure. The failure mileage was approximatel
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1783530 |
| ODI Number | 11444001 |
| Date Filed | December 16, 2021 |
| Failure Date | December 12, 2021 |
| VIN | 1FM5K8D87DG |
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.