Seat belt or retractor failure on the 2001 Ford Expedition
3 crashes 2 fires 5 injuries 10 of the 41 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.
When seat belt or retractor failure gets reported
Owners of the 2001 Ford Expedition report seat belt or retractor failure at a median of 80,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles, from 19 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 82,000 miles. It is the 6th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 40,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 200,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 161,000 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
5% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 39,000 miles | 39,000 miles | 80,000 miles | 124,500 miles | 200,000 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, 3 a crash, 2 a fire and 5 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 $200–$900 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 17 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2018, at a median of 2,200 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 220,000 miles.
By volume the 2019 carries the most reports, with 59; the 2001 has 41. 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.
Consumer called complaining about having problems with seat belts. Seat belts will not lock properly. Manufacturer was not contacted at the time of this call. *ak seat belts started coming unlatched while driving. At first, consumer thought she didn't latch it properly. It continued to happen more often over the next two months. She contacted the dealer and they stated she had the vehicle too long to be covered. Consumer learned of a recall for her vehicle but her VIN wasn't included. Consumer replaced the seat belt and the second seat right passenger belt also. *ph
While driving at any speed passenger's seat belt got tangled in the seat back release. This happened at least three times. Dealer replaced seat belt, but the problem persists. *ak
Dt: the contact complained about several problems with vehicle. First, the accelerator pedal stuck. The dealer cleaned the throttle body which seemed to solve the problem. The vehicle would sometimes surge forward. She thought the surging was related to apparent transmission problems. She finally had the transmission rebuilt. Part of the cost was covered under the extended warranty. Secondly, the seat belt in the middle row did not retract correctly. The dealer could not duplicate the problem. Therefore, no repairs were made to the seat belt. Thirdly, the left rear door actuator had to be replaced because the power locks were not working. Fourthly, the rear passenger child safety lock did not work properly. Once the child safety lock was deactivated, and the door handle was raised from the inside, the child safety lock activated. The contact's husband corrected this problem by taking apart the lock and cleaning it. She had to push very hard on the exterior key pad to get it to work. The dealer did not think this was a problem since she was able to get it to work eventually. Lastly, the right front power window worked…
Also reported on the 2001 Ford Expedition
Misfire or rough idle
Other electrical problem
Cruise control failure
Other speed control problem
Other engine problem
Other wheel or tire problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 41 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 seat belt or retractor failure happen on the 2001 Ford Expedition?
Across 19 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is seat belt or retractor failure on the 2001 Ford Expedition?
41 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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