2018 Ford Flex
This year drew an ordinary 61 complaints for a Ford Flex — the model's median is 144. What they were about is the unusual part: 36.1% of them mention camera, against 6.2% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 61 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 144 |
| Involving a crash | 7 |
| Recalls | 3 |
| EPA combined | 18 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- camera — 36.1% of this year's complaints, against 6.2% across the model's other years (5.8×).
- pad — 6.6% of this year's complaints, against 0.6% across the model's other years (10.3×). Owners wrote it as: pad, missing.
- spot — 6.6% of this year's complaints, against 0.7% across the model's other years (9.3×). Owners wrote it as: spot, blind, blind spot, warning shows.
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
Rear camera malfunctioned screen showed “camera not available” didn’t alert any noise or warnings and a tree hovered slightly into parking spot and smashed in my rear window. Audio inside car malfunctioned as well (no musics, etc) and the touch pad tones stopp…
while driving 35 MPH in the rain, the windshield wipers engaged but were moving significantly fast and significantly slow intermittently. The contact stated that the driver's assist system, including the blind spot detection system, the engine auto Start-Stop…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 20V072000 SUSPENSION Fixed free of charge.
- 25V695000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
- 25V732000 STRUCTURE Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Ford Flex 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 2018 Ford Flex? What happened to yours?
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