2021 FORD BRONCO — Complaint #1898803
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:AXLE ASSEMBLY:BANJO HOUSING filed June 1, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1898803 (ODI reference 11524757) concerns a 2021 FORD BRONCO and was filed on June 1, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on May 29, 2023. The report was geocoded to California based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:axle assembly:banjo housing, 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 BRONCO cohort independently describe similar power train:axle assembly:banjo housing 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 2021 FORD BRONCO shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The Axle Tubes are held to the center differential with 3 x Plug Welds per side. The plug welds on our axle are weeping oil and do NOT appear to be properly welded. Upon online comparisons this is a known issue and is resulting in catastrophic failures. Ford claims that "weeps" are NOT covered under warranty. A weep in this location/situation means that the welding process was sub-standard and compromised.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1898803 |
| ODI Number | 11524757 |
| Date Filed | June 1, 2023 |
| Failure Date | May 29, 2023 |
| VIN | 1FMEE5DP4ML |
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.