1998 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #348277
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about CHILD SEAT:SHELL:INFANT filed May 8, 2002
NHTSA complaint #348277 (ODI reference 761655) concerns a 1998 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on May 8, 2002. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 3, 2002. The report was geocoded to Virginia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as child seat:shell:infant, 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: 1, 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. No VIN was supplied by the filer, so this complaint contributes to model-year trend data but cannot be tied to a specific vehicle.
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 child seat:shell:infant 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 1998 FORD EXPLORER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
DUE TO EXTREME WIDTH OF YOUTH SEAT (AKA BOOSTER SEAT), THE UNIT IS VERY CLOSE TO THE PASSENGER DOOR. UPON CLOSING THE CAR DOOR, CHILD'S FINGERS WERE CRUSHED BETWEEN THE DOOR AND THE CAR SEAT. FINGERS WERE DEFORMED AT FIRST, BUT RECOVERD TO ORIGINAL FORM WITHIN 10 MINUTES. NO BROKEN BONES. WHEN INSTALLING THE SEAT, THE SEAT BELT LATCH IS LOCATED "BEHIND" THE SEAT - AS OPPOSED TO BEING LOCATED TO THE SIDE OF THE SEAT. THIS CAUSES THE NATURE POSITION OF THE SEAT TO MOVE TOWARD THE DOOR, INCREASING THE RISK OF FINGER CRUSHING BY THE DOOR. ALSO, DUE TO THE EXTREME WIDTH, THE ENTIRE SEATBELT IS USED TO INSTALL THE SEAT (ABOUT AN INCH WILL BE RETRACTED), THUS MAKING A PROPER INSTALLATION NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE IN A FORD EXPLORER. WHEN I CONTACTED THE MANUFACTOR, BRITAX, (BY PHONE, FAX, AND LETTER), I ONLY RECEIVED A LETTER BACK APOLOGIZING FOR THE "PINCHING" OF MY DAUGHTER'S FINGERS. THEY OBVIOUSLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONSEQUENCE OF THIS "DEFECT." NOTHING WAS DONE BY BRITAX TO ADDRESS T
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 348277 |
| ODI Number | 761655 |
| Date Filed | May 8, 2002 |
| Failure Date | April 3, 2002 |
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.