2016 Ford Mustang
This year drew an ordinary 371 complaints for a Ford Mustang — the model's median is 260. What they were about is the unusual part: 10.2% of them mention evaporator, against 2.1% across the other years of this generation.
Generation 2 of the Ford Mustang, which began in 2015 and ran to 2023. 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 | 371 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 260 |
| Involving a crash | 13 |
| Involving a fire | 6 |
| Recalls | 5 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 21.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- evaporator — 10.2% of this year's complaints, against 2.1% across the other years of this generation (4.8×). Owners wrote it as: evaporator, core, evaporator core, conditioning.
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
AIR CONDITIONING IS FAILING AFTER 60,000 MILES. SUSPECT IT IS THE ALREADY WELL DOCUMENTED EVAPORATOR CORE GOING BAD.
AIR CONDITIONING STOPPED WORKING. DEALER SERVICE TECH FOUND AIR CONDITIONER EVAPORATOR IS LEAKING. VEHICLE MILEAGE 22968. SERVICE TECH INDICATED THAT THIS IS THE SECOND OCCURRENCE RECENTLY AND HE IS SCHEDULED TO REPLACE AN EVAPORATOR ON ANOTHER MUSTANG TOMORRO…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 15V707000 SEAT BELTS Fixed free of charge.
- 16V779000 ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING Fixed free of charge.
- 22V082000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
- 25V572000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
- 25V614000 SEAT BELTS 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 2016 Ford Mustang? What happened to yours?
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