2002 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #540624
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:DRIVELINE:CENTER SUPPORT BEARING filed June 21, 2005
NHTSA complaint #540624 (ODI reference 10126131) concerns a 2002 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on June 21, 2005. The owner reports the failure occurred on August 20, 2003. The report was geocoded to Kentucky based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:driveline:center support bearing, 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:driveline:center support bearing 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 2002 FORD EXPLORER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
MY HUSBAND AND I PURCHASED A 2002 FORD EXPLORER XLT AROUND MID JULY/EARLY AUGUST 2002. IN AUGUST OF 2003 I NOTICE THAT MY CAR WAS EXPERIENCING SOME CLUNKING IN THE TRANSMISSION. I DON'T KNOW THE FULL DETAIL OF THAT PROBLEM BUT THEY GAVE ME AN EXTRA 5 YEAR WARRENTY ON MY VEHICLE. LAST YEAR MY FAMILY AND I TOOK A TRIP TO FLORIDA AND MY CAR WOULD GET THIS LOUD ROARING SOUND AT 45 MILES PER HOUR. WHEN WE RETURNED FROM MY TRIP I CALLED TO COMPLAIN ABOUT IT. THEY ASKED ME TO BRING IT TO THEM BUT THEY SAID THAT IT WAS MY TIRES. MY HUSBAND REPLACED THE TIRES HOPING THAT THIS WOULD RESOLVED THE PROBLEM. (EVEN BEFORE THIS PROBLEM BECAUSE THEY REQUESTED US TOO). A WEEK LATER MY HUSBAND AND I WENT TO TEXAS AND THE SOUND GOT WORSE. UPON RETURNING FROM OUR TRIP I WAS TOLD THAT IT WAS MY AXEL. MY FAMILY AND I COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED BECAUSE OF THEIR MISTAKE. I 'VE HAD MY FRONT AND REAR WHEEL BEARINGS, AXEL, AXEL BOOT, HUBS BEARINGS, EMERGENCY BRAKE (WHICH THEY SAY WAS SPLIT) REPLACED. I STILL HEAR A
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 540624 |
| ODI Number | 10126131 |
| Date Filed | June 21, 2005 |
| Failure Date | August 20, 2003 |
| VIN | 1FMZU63K52U |
Similar POWER TRAIN:DRIVELINE:CENTER SUPPORT BEARING Complaints for 2002 FORD EXPLORER
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.