2016 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #1937230
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about VISIBILITY:WINDSHIELD:CRITICAL FASTENERS filed October 20, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1937230 (ODI reference 11551074) concerns a 2016 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on October 20, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on October 19, 2023. The report was geocoded to Tennessee based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as visibility:windshield:critical fasteners, 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 visibility:windshield:critical fasteners 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.
Complaint Description
I was driving my 2016 Ford Explorer on I-65 October 19, 2023, in the afternoon. I thought something flew off of one of the two semis in front of me and hit my windshield on two separate times, within a few seconds of each other. When I arrived home, I checked to see if I had any damages, and I was surprised to see pieces missing from the passenger side of my windshield. This morning, October 20, 2023, I went to a local Ford Dealership and was informed there is no recall regarding the upper and lower pillars (windshield trim pieces). I called Ford Headquarters and was told they hadn't heard of this issue before, and I filed a claim. I researched and found two articles: January 31, 2023, USA Today and Carscoops, February 03, 2023, regarding NHTSA investigating these same pieces flying off of Ford Explorers, and I found pictures on the internet that look exactly like my vehicle when these pieces flew off.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1937230 |
| ODI Number | 11551074 |
| Date Filed | October 20, 2023 |
| Failure Date | October 19, 2023 |
| VIN | 1FM5K7F80GG |
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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.