2013 FORD C-MAX — Complaint #1913223
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about EQUIPMENT:MECHANICAL:CARRIER/RACK filed July 26, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1913223 (ODI reference 11534525) concerns a 2013 FORD C-MAX and was filed on July 26, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 16, 2023. The report was geocoded to Washington based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as equipment:mechanical:carrier/rack, 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 C-MAX cohort independently describe similar equipment:mechanical:carrier/rack 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 C-MAX shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
On March 21, after communicating several times with Yakima regarding difficulties I was having in installing the roof rack onto our car, I was able to install the racks, though the tower and clip system for the front rack were uncomfortably at the limit of extension of the drive bolt (the part of the system that applies the tension that keeps the rack on the car). With the multiple installation attempts and communication with Yakima Consumer Service I am very confident that I installed the rack consistent with Yakima instructions. Following installation the roof racks were not used to transport our kayaks until mid June. On June 16 my wife was driving on the very busy Interstate 5 close to our home in Lynnwood WA when the front rack separated from the car, impacting and damaging the roof on the way off. It was extremely lucky that no vehicle was behind her, and no accident was caused. We found remnants of the front rack on the side of the highway, and there was clear evidence that
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1913223 |
| ODI Number | 11534525 |
| Date Filed | July 26, 2023 |
| Failure Date | June 16, 2023 |
| VIN | 1FADP5CU7DL |
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.