2011 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #1920191
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:TRANSMISSION CASE/HOUSING filed August 18, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1920191 (ODI reference 11539347) concerns a 2011 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on August 18, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on October 30, 2022. The vehicle had 120,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Iowa based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:transmission case/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 EXPLORER cohort independently describe similar power train:transmission case/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 2011 FORD EXPLORER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2011 Ford Explorer. The contact stated that on five different occasions while driving at various speeds, the power steering warning light illuminated, and the steering wheel became firm, making it difficult to steer the vehicle. The contact stated that on one occasion, the vehicle was towed to a dealer where the contact was informed that the power steering gear needed to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired; however, the failure recurred a week later. The manufacture was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 120,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1920191 |
| ODI Number | 11539347 |
| Date Filed | August 18, 2023 |
| Failure Date | October 30, 2022 |
| VIN | 1FMHK8F80BG |
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.