1986 FORD MUSTANG — Complaint #1843542
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:IGNITION:COIL filed September 26, 2022
NHTSA complaint #1843542 (ODI reference 11486404) concerns a 1986 FORD MUSTANG and was filed on September 26, 2022. The owner reports the failure occurred on July 6, 2022. The vehicle had 62,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Ohio based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as electrical system:ignition:coil, 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 MUSTANG cohort independently describe similar electrical system:ignition:coil 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 1986 FORD MUSTANG shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 1986 Ford Mustang. The contact stated that while driving at approximately 20 MPH, the vehicle stalled and he was able to continue driving in second gear. The vehicle then lost motive power and failed to restart. No warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle was then towed to an independent mechanic where it was diagnosed that due to an electrical failure, the spark plugs, distributor cap, ignition wires, and the ignition control module needed to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired; however, the failure reoccurred. The contact stated that while driving at an unknown speed, the vehicle was jerking and then lost motive power. No warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle failed to restart and was towed back to the independent mechanic, where it was diagnosed that the timing belt, the gears, and the distributor needed to be replaced. The timing belt and gears were repaired. The contact stated that there was no replacement distributor available so the distributor wa
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1843542 |
| ODI Number | 11486404 |
| Date Filed | September 26, 2022 |
| Failure Date | July 6, 2022 |
| VIN | 1FABP28T8GF |
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.