2018 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #2144422
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about STRUCTURE:INTERIOR PANELS:DASHBOARD filed October 30, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2144422 (ODI reference 11696552) concerns a 2018 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on October 30, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on October 30, 2023. The vehicle had 45,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Florida based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as structure:interior panels:dashboard, 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 structure:interior panels:dashboard 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 2018 FORD EXPLORER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2018 Ford Explorer. The contact stated that due to sunlight exposure, the outer layer of the dashboard peeled off and continued to expand near the location of the air bags. The contact was concerned that the defect might cause an air bag deployment malfunction in the event of a crash. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer, and the contact was informed that the entire dashboard needed to be replaced. The manufacturer was notified of the failure, but no assistance was offered. The failure mileage was 45,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2144422 |
| ODI Number | 11696552 |
| Date Filed | October 30, 2025 |
| Failure Date | October 30, 2023 |
| VIN | 1FM5K8HT8JG |
Similar STRUCTURE:INTERIOR PANELS:DASHBOARD Complaints for 2018 FORD EXPLORER
The contact owns a 2018 Ford Explorer. The contact stated that the leather on the dashboard was peeling, and the contact was concerned that the passenger's side air bag might deploy. The vehicle was t
The contactâs wife owns a 2018 Ford Explorer. The contact stated that the dashboard had started to peel. The contact also noticed that bubbles had started to form on the passengerâs side dashboard
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.