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2016 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #1887816

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NHTSA Complaint about SEATS:FRONT ASSEMBLY:SEAT HEATER/COOLER filed April 14, 2023

NHTSA complaint #1887816 (ODI reference 11517131) concerns a 2016 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on April 14, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on March 24, 2023. The vehicle had 120,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to New York based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as seats:front assembly:seat heater/cooler, 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 EXPLORER cohort independently describe similar seats:front assembly:seat heater/cooler 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 2016 FORD EXPLORER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2016 FORD EXPLORER
Component
SEATS:FRONT ASSEMBLY:SEAT HEATER/COOLER
State
New York
Mileage
120,000 mi

Complaint Description

The contact owns a 2016 Ford Explorer. The contact stated that after noticing that the seat heaters were inoperable, he saw that the heated seat module connector had melted. The contact also stated that the front passenger’s side seat controls were inoperable. No warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle had not yet been taken to an independent mechanic or a local dealer to be diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and advised the contact to file a complaint with the NHTSA Hotline. The approximate failure mileage was 120,000.

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 1887816
ODI Number 11517131
Date Filed April 14, 2023
Failure Date March 24, 2023
VIN 1FM5K8GTXGG

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.