2025 Ford Explorer
This year drew an ordinary 95 complaints for a Ford Explorer — the model's median is 568. What they were about is the unusual part: 16.8% of them mention door, against 6.6% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 3 of the Ford Explorer, which began in 2020. 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 | 95 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 568 |
| Involving a crash | 7 |
| Recalls | 19 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 21 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- door — 16.8% of this year's complaints, against 6.6% across the other years of this generation (2.5×). Owners wrote it as: door, cause failure, shatter, absolutely.
- snow — 7.4% of this year's complaints, against 0.5% across the other years of this generation (13.8×). Owners wrote it as: snow, building, windshield where.
- feature — 9.5% of this year's complaints, against 1.6% across the other years of this generation (5.8×). Owners wrote it as: feature, removing, consider, speakers.
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
I was driving on the Highway and all the sudden for absolutely no apparent reason the Passenger side door window completely shattered into small bits of glass. I check the vehicle for any damage other than the window not a scratch on the door at all I have no…
Hands free connection from cell phone to vehicle speakers and mic won't work properly. I consider this a safety issue as it requires me to pickup phone and turn off Bluetooth and work phone manually, looking at it, rather than hands-free. Dealer says corporate…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 24V634000 FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE Fixed free of charge.
- 24V801000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
- 24V852000 EQUIPMENT Fixed free of charge.
- 25V020000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 25V164000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 25V239000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 25V316000 STRUCTURE Fixed free of charge.
- 25V344000 ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING Fixed free of charge.
Showing 8 of 19. The rest are on NHTSA's site.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Ford Explorer 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 2025 Ford Explorer? What happened to yours?
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