ABS module or sensor failure on the 1998 Ford Expedition
4 crashes 1 fire 1 injury 6 of the 30 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
Only 3 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When abs module or sensor failure gets reported
There are 30 reports of ABS module or sensor failure on the 1998 Ford Expedition, 3 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 11th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 55,000 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 4 a crash, 1 a fire and 1 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $500–$2,400 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 13 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2008, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 1997 carries the most reports, with 51; the 1998 has 30. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
I have a 1998 ford expedition, and the cruise control stopped working, the anti-lock brakes stopped working, the brake lights stopped working, and I could not put the car in gear. I looked at the fuse box and found a fuse blown. When I replaced the fuse, the engine compartment in the car started smoking profusely. I pulled the fuse out right away, and had someone watch as I put it back in. The smoking started again, and it was coming from some type of brake switch on the front of the master cylinder. I took the car to airport ford in florence, ky, and they said it was the same problem that the 2000 fords were being recalled for. I asked them if it was covered under the re-call, and they said it was not the right year or VIN. They said they didn't know why because it was the exact same switch causing the exact same fire that others are experiencing. I had to pay $158.14 plus $15.00 "shop supplies" plus $10.39 in taxes, totaling $183.53 for a design and safety flaw - the same one that they say only affects the 2000 models. Ford is trying to keep from taking care of the problem for other models even though even their own dealership…
Dt: when the brakes are depressed, the ABS system prevents the brake from engaging. After pumping the brake pedal several times, the brakes re-engage. Generally happens more often when the outdoor temperature is around thirty-two degrees fahrenheit. Dealer stated that no problem could be found. *tt
Dt: the contact stated when applying the brakes at low speeds the pedal will go to the floor, and vehicle will vibrate. When this happens the vehicle will not stop. There are no warning lights indicating a problem with the brakes. This happens intermittently, with no specific pattern or conditions. The dealer said this was normal performance for this vehicle. *ak
Also reported on the 1998 Ford Expedition
Other suspension problem
Misfire or rough idle
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
Other wheel or tire problem
Other body or interior problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 30 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 30 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does abs module or sensor failure happen on the 1998 Ford Expedition?
Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 55,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is abs module or sensor failure on the 1998 Ford Expedition?
30 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed