2016 FORD EXPEDITION — Complaint #2081486
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about TRAILER HITCHES filed April 9, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2081486 (ODI reference 11653600) concerns a 2016 FORD EXPEDITION and was filed on April 9, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on March 25, 2025. The vehicle had 129,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Ohio based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as trailer hitches, 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 EXPEDITION cohort independently describe similar trailer hitches 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 EXPEDITION shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2016 Ford Expedition. The contact stated that while driving approximately 35 MPH and hauling a trailer attached to the tow hitch, the trailer suddenly detached from the vehicle. The trailer hitch had fractured due to extensive rust. The dealer was contacted and informed about the failure. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was informed of the failure and opened a case. The manufacturer referred the contact to the NHTSA Hotline to file a complaint. The failure mileage was approximately 129,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2081486 |
| ODI Number | 11653600 |
| Date Filed | April 9, 2025 |
| Failure Date | March 25, 2025 |
| VIN | 1FMJK2AT4GE |
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.