2012 Ford Expedition
This year drew an ordinary 118 complaints for a Ford Expedition — the model's median is 146. What they were about is the unusual part: 33.9% of them mention transmission, against 7% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 1 of the Ford Expedition, which began in 2007 and ran to 2017. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 118 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 146 |
| Involving a crash | 6 |
| Involving a fire | 2 |
| Recalls | 3 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 4/5 |
| EPA combined | 15.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- transmission — 33.9% of this year's complaints, against 7% across the other years of this generation (4.9×).
- vin — 19.5% of this year's complaints, against 5.6% across the other years of this generation (3.5×).
- locked — 13.6% of this year's complaints, against 5.2% across the other years of this generation (2.6×). Owners wrote it as: locked, listed, wheels, jerked.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
VEHICLE RANDOMLY DOWN SHIFTING AT HIGH RATE OF SPEED CAUSING REAR TIRES TO LOCK UP. SAME EXPERIENCES AS LISTED IN APRIL 27, 2016 RECALL NOTICE. MY VEHICLE WAS MADE IN SAME [VIN] PLANT BUT A FEW DAYS OUT OF THE RECALL DATES FOR VEHICLES. TRANSMISSION KEEPS SLIP…
MY 2012 EXHIBITION EXHIBITS THE SAME SYMPTOMS THAT ARE DESCRIBED IN RECALL# 12V190000. WHILE AT HIGHWAY SPEEDS; SPEEDOMETER DROPS TO ZERO, TRANSMISSION SHIFTS TO 5TH GEAR AND WHEN THE BREAKS ARE APPLIED DOWNSIFTS TO 1ST GEAR CAUSING WHEEL HOP AND POSSIBLE LOSS…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 16V248000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 12V190000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 12V034000 SEATS Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Ford Expedition was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2012 Ford Expedition? What happened to yours?
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