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1999 FORD EXPLORER — Complaint #727352

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NHTSA Complaint about SEATS:FRONT ASSEMBLY:RECLINER filed July 16, 2009

NHTSA complaint #727352 (ODI reference 10277004) concerns a 1999 FORD EXPLORER and was filed on July 16, 2009. The owner reports the failure occurred on July 14, 2009. The vehicle had 128,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Indiana based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as seats:front assembly:recliner, 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. 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 seats:front assembly:recliner 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 1999 FORD EXPLORER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
1999 FORD EXPLORER
Component
SEATS:FRONT ASSEMBLY:RECLINER
State
Indiana
Mileage
128,000 mi

Complaint Description

TL*THE CONTACT OWNS A 1999 FORD EXPLORER. WHILE DRIVING APPROXIMATELY 35 MPH, THE DRIVER'S SIDE HIGH BACK SEAT COLLAPSED BACKWARDS. THE SEAT RECLINER MECHANISM WAS THE CAUSE OF THE FAILURE. THE DRIVER PULLED OVER TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD AND WAS ABLE TO RESUME DRIVING IN AN UPRIGHT POSITION. THE FAILURE OCCURRED WITHOUT WARNING. THE VIN WAS EXCLUDED FROM NHTSA CAMPAIGN ID NUMBER 03V281000 (SEATS:FRONT ASSEMBLY:RECLINER), ALTHOUGH THE FAILURES WERE IDENTICAL. THE VEHICLE HAS NOT BEEN REPAIRED AND IS CURRENTLY NOT BEING DRIVEN. THE VIN WAS UNKNOWN. THE FAILURE AND CURRENT MILEAGES WERE 128,000.

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 727352
ODI Number 10277004
Date Filed July 16, 2009
Failure Date July 14, 2009

Similar SEATS:FRONT ASSEMBLY:RECLINER Complaints for 1999 FORD EXPLORER

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