Model years › Ford F-150

2013 Ford F-150

Complaints about this year name shift far more often than the other years of this generation — 11% of them, about 3× the usual rate of 4.2%.

Generation 2 of the Ford F-150, which began in 2009 and ran to 2014. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.

What the complaints were about

• shift — 10.5% of this year's complaints, against 4.2% across the other years of this generation (2.5×). Owners wrote it as: shift, down shift.

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 DOWNSHIFTED (AT 65MPH ON HWY) FROM 6TH TO 3RD TO 1ST GEAR ALL BY ITSELF.

TRANSMISSION WOULD SHIFT FROM 6TH GEAR TO 1ST FOR NO REASON LOCKING UP THE REAR WHEELS.

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.

Recalls for this year

• 19V075000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
• 19V433000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
• 16V345000 SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC Fixed free of charge.

Own a 2013 Ford F-150? What happened to yours?

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How this was worked out

Every year of the Ford F-150 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.

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