2012 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #2027935
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:COOLING SYSTEM:PUMP filed September 26, 2024
NHTSA complaint #2027935 (ODI reference 11616712) concerns a 2012 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on September 26, 2024. The owner reports the failure occurred on August 26, 2024. The vehicle had 133,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Kansas based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine and engine cooling:cooling system:pump, 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 engine and engine cooling:cooling system:pump 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 the vehicle was parked, upon further inspection, the contact became aware of a water leak. No warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle was taken to a local independent mechanic where it was diagnosed that the water pump had leaked along the leaking hole near the engine block. The local dealer was not contacted. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired due to the cost. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 133,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2027935 |
| ODI Number | 11616712 |
| Date Filed | September 26, 2024 |
| Failure Date | August 26, 2024 |
| VIN | 1FMHK7F81CG |
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.