2026 data Public-data reference. official source

1998 FORD EXPLORER SPORT — Complaint #613098

Open-data reference.

NHTSA Complaint about SUSPENSION:REAR:SPRINGS:LEAF SPRING ASSEMBLY:LEAF filed February 12, 2007

NHTSA complaint #613098 (ODI reference 10182413) concerns a 1998 FORD EXPLORER SPORT and was filed on February 12, 2007. The owner reports the failure occurred on September 5, 2005. The report was geocoded to New York based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as suspension:rear:springs:leaf spring assembly:leaf, 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 SPORT cohort independently describe similar suspension:rear:springs:leaf spring assembly:leaf 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 SPORT shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
1998 FORD EXPLORER SPORT
Component
SUSPENSION:REAR:SPRINGS:LEAF SPRING ASSEMBLY:LEAF
State
New York

Complaint Description

I HAVE A 1998 FORD EXPLORER SPORT 2 DOOR 4WD WITH A SINGLE REAR LEAF SPRING ON EACH SIDE THE TRUCK SITS ABOUT 1-2 INCHES LOWER ON THE LEFT SIDE AND THE SPRING ARE ALMOST COMPLETELY FLAT. THIS IS NOT THE FIRST I HAVE HEARD OF THIS I HAVE TALKED TO MANY PEOPLE WITH THE MODEL EXPLORER THAT HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM IS THERE SOMETHING THAT THE FACTORY CAN DO TO FIX IT WITHOUT ME THE CONSUMER HAVING TO PUT HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS INTO THIS VEHICLE. *JB

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 613098
ODI Number 10182413
Date Filed February 12, 2007
Failure Date September 5, 2005
VIN 1FMYU24EXWU

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.