2012 Ford Mustang
This year drew an ordinary 469 complaints for a Ford Mustang — the model's median is 260. What they were about is the unusual part: 23.5% of them mention transmission, against 3.5% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 1 of the Ford Mustang, which began in 2005 and ran to 2014. 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 | 469 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 260 |
| Involving a crash | 20 |
| Involving a fire | 2 |
| Recalls | 7 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 4/5 |
| EPA combined | 20 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- transmission — 23.5% of this year's complaints, against 3.5% across the other years of this generation (6.7×).
- gear — 33.5% of this year's complaints, against 11.2% across the other years of this generation (3×). Owners wrote it as: gear, shift, 2nd, shifting.
- wrench — 9.2% of this year's complaints, against 1.7% across the other years of this generation (5.5×). Owners wrote it as: wrench, restarted, wrench light.
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
SINCE PURCHASE OF MY 2012 FORD MUSTANG V6 WITH MANUAL TRANSMISSION I HAVE NOTICED 5TH GEAR BEING NOTCHY EVEN WITH JUST 4 MILES ON IT. I CURRENTLY HAVE 2715 MILES ON THE CAR AND HAVE HAD SEVERAL OCCASIONS WHERE I HAVE EXPERIENCED GRINDING IN THE TRANSMISSION IN…
ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS WHILE SHIFTING INTO A HIGHER GEAR AT 7000 - 7500 RPM THE CLUTCH PEDDLE DID NOT RETURN TO THE FULLY ENGAGED POSITION AND THE CLUTCH DID NOT FULLY ENGAGE. AFTER DRIVING 1 OR 2 MILES THE SITUATION CORRECTED ITSELF. MANUAL 6 SPEED MANUAL TRAN…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 19V001000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 17V024000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 15V319000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 16V248000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 12V190000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 21V081000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 21E013000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Ford Mustang 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 Mustang? What happened to yours?
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