all vehicles · every Explorer year · method

Ford Explorer 2023

Safety complaints filed by owners in the first three years, per 1,000 sold.

0.39 per 1,000

better than this nameplate’s own median · from 77 complaints filed in the first three years, of 112 ever. 95% lower bound 0.30.

Against its own model years

The model year carries far more information than the badge, so this is the comparison that matters.

Model year	Per 1,000	Complaints
2008	0.26	20
2009	0.11	7
2010	0.81	46
2011	1.92	259
2012	0.92	138
2013	1.30	231
2014	1.14	229
2015	1.93	443
2016	2.70	672
2017	1.56	405
2018	0.45	119
2019	0.18	41
2020	1.64	339
2021	0.70	156
2022	0.60	129
2023	0.39	77

What owners describe

No phrase appears often enough in these complaints to describe them reliably.

When it breaks

72% of reported failures happened before 30,000 miles (median 17,000 miles, from 25 complaints that recorded one).

Failures cluster early, which is the signature of how the car was built rather than of wear. A low-mileage example has not yet passed the risk window.

What NHTSA did

No NHTSA investigation covers this model year.

That is not a clean bill of health, and not a criticism of the agency: investigations open for many reasons and complaint volume is only one of them.

What owners and forums say

Not built yet. This panel is meant to carry community sentiment beside the filed-complaint data, so the two can be compared. Showing something weaker here would defeat its purpose.

Check this yourself

Example records behind this page:

11513768 · 11517340 · 11518193 · 11532171 · 11532863 · 11535307

Limits of this figure. It counts safety complaints filed with the federal government, which is a floor on failures and not a census: problems that only cost money are under-reported. Complaint rates also reflect how likely a brand’s owners are to file, which cannot be separated from how often the car fails. Sales are calendar-year and the denominator for this nameplate is verified against a published figure.