Engine bay fire on the 1998 Ford Expedition
5 fires 5 of the 6 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 4 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 engine bay fire gets reported
There are 6 reports of engine bay fire on the 1998 Ford Expedition, 4 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 30th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 121,500 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, 5 a fire is 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 $4,000–$20,000 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 7 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2003, at a median of 100,000 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 140,000 miles.
By volume the 2000 carries the most reports, with 12; the 1998 has 6. 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.
While driving 25 MPH consumer hear a popping noise from the engine. Vehicle caught on fire under the hood. Pulled over, put out the fire, and had the vehicle towed. Dealership was notified, but did not resolve the problem. *ak *bf nm corrected 6/16/05 - incident date wrong and 0 injuries not 2 spoke with owner - passenger (uncle) is devastated and driver (owner) still hears ringing in his ears - they both feared dying because of vehicle exploding while driving *slp
My 98 expedition was parked in my garage when my son came home and opened the garage a saw smoke coming out. I had been home about 80 mins. The smoke was coming from under the hood of my exp. I quickly started the vehicle to get it out of the garage area, but it would not go into reverse - the brake pressure fuse had blown due to the wire fire, so the car was stuck in park. Luckily the fire went out on it's own. Problem was the cruise control deactivation switch sparked (somehow) and started a small wire fire under the hood - near the brake fluid reservior. This could have burned my car and my house down !! North central ford (richardson tx) would not fix the problem at no charge, because "only the 2000 models had a recall" !! They did acknowledge that the 1997 to 2001 models are currently being "investigated" by ford engineers and the NHTSA for the same fire problem that I had. My mechanic (not a ford dealer) disconnected the wire harness so now the fuse won't blow and I can drive the vehicle. I will have my mechanic fix the problem tomorrow. *nm
Tl*the contact owns a 1998 ford expedition. The contact stated that the vehicle caught fire under the hood. The insurance investigator stated that a cruise control device caused the failure. There is a recall for the vehicle speed control (NHTSA campaign id # 00v422000). The contact felt that his vehicle should be included. As of october 9, 2007, the dealer had not inspected the vehicle. The current and failure mileages were 125,000.
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 6 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 6 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 engine bay fire happen on the 1998 Ford Expedition?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 120,000 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 engine bay fire on the 1998 Ford Expedition?
6 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.0 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