2012 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #1917470
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about STEERING:LINKAGES:TIE ROD ASSEMBLY filed August 9, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1917470 (ODI reference 11537438) concerns a 2012 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on August 9, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on August 5, 2023. The vehicle had 137,137 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Georgia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as steering:linkages:tie rod assembly, 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 steering:linkages:tie rod assembly 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 2012 FORD EXPLORER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2012 Ford Explorer. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, he heard an abnormal sound, and the steering column was inoperable, and the vehicle was immovable. The contact stated that he was able to shift into reverse and safely drove the vehicle into a parking lot. The contact stated that when he inspected the vehicle, he noticed that the tie rod was fractured. The vehicle was towed to the dealer, but the vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The contact stated that the vehicle had recently been serviced for two safety recalls and a front-end alignment prior to the tie rod failure. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 137,137.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1917470 |
| ODI Number | 11537438 |
| Date Filed | August 9, 2023 |
| Failure Date | August 5, 2023 |
| VIN | 1FMHK7F82CG |
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.