2021 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #2127292
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:AXLE HUBS filed September 5, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2127292 (ODI reference 11685212) concerns a 2021 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on September 5, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on August 5, 2025. The vehicle had 113,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Alabama based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:axle hubs, 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:axle hubs 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 2021 FORD EXPLORER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2021 Ford Explorer. The contact stated that while reversing, there was an abnormal clunking sound coming from the rear differential, with the vehicle vibrating. The vehicle was taken to the dealer and was diagnosed and determined that the drive axle, wheel hub assembly, and the hub splines needed to be replaced. The dealer informed the contact that the vehicle was previously included in NHTSA Campaign Number: 22V255000 (Power Train); and was repaired by Hutchinson Ford of Forsyth (288 Harold G. Clark Parkway, Forsyth, GA 31029). The vehicle was not yet repaired for the recent failure. The manufacturer was not informed of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 113,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2127292 |
| ODI Number | 11685212 |
| Date Filed | September 5, 2025 |
| Failure Date | August 5, 2025 |
| VIN | 1FM5K8GC2MG |
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.