2020 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #2005412
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:TRANSFER CASE (4-WHEEL DRIVE) filed July 7, 2024
NHTSA complaint #2005412 (ODI reference 11599832) concerns a 2020 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on July 7, 2024. The owner reports the failure occurred on July 1, 2024. The report was geocoded to California based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:transfer case (4-wheel drive), 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:transfer case (4-wheel drive) 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 2020 FORD EXPLORER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
Our explorer has had cascading warnings each time we drive the car for the past 7 days. Sometimes it takes a mile, sometimes it is immediate. The safety warnings include: 4-wheel drive fault, passenger air bag fault, forward Collision avoidance not working, powertrain malfunction, restraint indicator light warning, pre collision assist- . Not all appear each time, and some change ( 4wheel drive fault/ power train malfuntion- restraint warning/ airbag seem to alternate. Power train shows with restraint. 4 wd malfunction shows with airbag). Each time it occurs the airbag warning illuminates. Dealer cannot work on it until July 16th. Sounds like tsb 23-2174, but have been unable to codes when I stopped by a dealer Before July 1 we had no warnings. 48,582 miles. When faults appear- most systems appear to work, have tried 4wd and other modes and they appear to work. But cruise control, seatbelt chimes and others do not work.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2005412 |
| ODI Number | 11599832 |
| Date Filed | July 7, 2024 |
| Failure Date | July 1, 2024 |
| VIN | 1FM5K8GC3LG |
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.