2016 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #2099830
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:TRANSFER CASE (4-WHEEL DRIVE) filed June 11, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2099830 (ODI reference 11666400) concerns a 2016 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on June 11, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 11, 2025. The vehicle had 135,401 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Indiana 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 2016 FORD EXPLORER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2016 Ford Explorer. The contact stated while driving 35 MPH, the vehicle shuddered abnormally with the check engine warning light illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, where it was diagnosed and determined that the transfer case had failed and needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 135,401.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2099830 |
| ODI Number | 11666400 |
| Date Filed | June 11, 2025 |
| Failure Date | June 11, 2025 |
| VIN | 1FM5K8B81GG |
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.