2017 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #2165627
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about Tether, Lower Anchor (on car seat or vehicle) filed January 12, 2026
NHTSA complaint #2165627 (ODI reference 11710519) concerns a 2017 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on January 12, 2026. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 10, 2025. The report was geocoded to Washington based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as tether, lower anchor (on car seat or vehicle), 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 tether, lower anchor (on car seat or vehicle) 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 2017 FORD EXPLORER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
While the car seat was properly installed and being used under normal conditions, the top tether strap pulled free from the anchor point. This caused the car seat to no longer be safely secured. The top tether is a critical safety component intended to limit forward movement of the car seat. Once the tether pulled free, the childâs safety was put at risk due to loss of proper restraint performance. The car seat has not been physically inspected by the manufacturer or other parties. The incident was reported to the manufacturer, but the manufacturer declined to evaluate the failure.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2165627 |
| ODI Number | 11710519 |
| Date Filed | January 12, 2026 |
| Failure Date | December 10, 2025 |
| VIN | 1FM5K7D8XHG |
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.