2012 FORD FOCUS — Complaint #2046049
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:COOLING SYSTEM:FAN filed December 6, 2024
NHTSA complaint #2046049 (ODI reference 11629270) concerns a 2012 FORD FOCUS and was filed on December 6, 2024. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 1, 2024. The vehicle had 120,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to South Carolina based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine and engine cooling:cooling system:fan, 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 FOCUS cohort independently describe similar engine and engine cooling:cooling system:fan 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 FOCUS shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2012 Ford Focus. The contact stated that while opening the front driver's side door, the engine fan inadvertently turned on without starting the vehicle. The engine fan remained running after the vehicle was turned off, causing the battery to become drained. The contact had to purchase a new battery. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired by an independent mechanic or dealer. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and advised the contact to file a complaint with the NHTSA Hotline. The failure mileage was approximately 120,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2046049 |
| ODI Number | 11629270 |
| Date Filed | December 6, 2024 |
| Failure Date | June 1, 2024 |
| VIN | 1FAHP3F28CL |
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.