2016 FORD FUSION — Complaint #1938022
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about STEERING: STEERING WHEEL/HANDLE BAR filed October 24, 2023
NHTSA complaint #1938022 (ODI reference 11551619) concerns a 2016 FORD FUSION and was filed on October 24, 2023. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 15, 2022. The vehicle had 110,000 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: steering wheel/handle bar, 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 FUSION cohort independently describe similar steering: steering wheel/handle bar 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 FUSION shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2016 Ford Fusion. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, she became aware that the steering wheel was not functioning properly and had become extremely loose. The contact briefly lost control of the vehicle, nearly causing a crash. No warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, who determined that the retaining bolt was loose and needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. After investigating the failure, the contact related it to NHTSA Campaign Number: 18V167000 (Steering), but the VIN was not included. The manufacturer was notified of the failure but referred the contact to the NHTSA hotline for assistance. The failure mileage was 110,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1938022 |
| ODI Number | 11551619 |
| Date Filed | October 24, 2023 |
| Failure Date | December 15, 2022 |
| VIN | 3FA6P0G74GR |
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.