2013 FORD F-150 — Complaint #2077420
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:ENGINE:ENGINE CONTROL MODULE (ECU/ECM):SOFTWARE filed March 26, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2077420 (ODI reference 11650781) concerns a 2013 FORD F-150 and was filed on March 26, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on May 15, 2024. The vehicle had 108,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to North Dakota based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine and engine cooling:engine:engine control module (ecu/ecm):software, 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 F-150 cohort independently describe similar engine and engine cooling:engine:engine control module (ecu/ecm):software 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 2013 FORD F-150 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2013 Ford F-150. The contact stated that on several occasions while driving at various speeds, the vehicle inadvertently downshifted into a lower gear and the speedometer stopped working. Additionally, the check engine and power train warning lights illuminated sporadically. The vehicle was steered to the side of the road and restarted each time. The contact then received notification of an unknown recall and the vehicle was taken to a dealer where it was diagnosed that the ECU needed to be reprogrammed. The vehicle was repaired but the failure became frequent. The contact stated the on one occasion during a failure, and pulling over to the side of road, the contact opened the hood and observed two parts sitting on the frame rail. The vehicle was then taken to a dealer where it was diagnosed that the transmission and blower motor/HVAC parts needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was a
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2077420 |
| ODI Number | 11650781 |
| Date Filed | March 26, 2025 |
| Failure Date | May 15, 2024 |
| VIN | 1FTFW1ET3DK |
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.