Cruise control failure on the 1998 Ford Explorer
5 crashes 27 fires 5 injuries 37 of the 67 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 cruise control failure gets reported
Owners of the 1998 Ford Explorer report cruise control failure at a median of 100,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 62,500 miles and a quarter after 122,500 miles, from 27 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 9th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 50,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 140,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 90,400 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.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50,000 miles | 61,500 miles | 101,000 miles | 122,500 miles | 140,400 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 crash, 27 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–$1,400 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 22 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2023, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2014 at 145,000 miles.
By volume the 1998 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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 received recall 00v422000 notice concerning vehicle speed control. While cruise control is engaged at any speed and the brakes are depress vehicle will surge forward. The only way this problem won't occur is if the consumer puts the gear in neutral. This problem happened three times in the last eighteen months. *ak
Underhood fire in explorer. Minor fire concentrated around cruise control deactivation switch. Fuse for that circuit blown. Xrays show total internal destruction of the switch contacts even though the plastic body is still relatively intact but charred and deformed.
While vehicle was parked for 2 hours, a fire started in the engine. The vehicle was totaled. The dealership was notified, but did not resolve the problem. *ak six to nine months prior to fire the cruise control stopped working. The insurance fire investigator determined the fire started in the cruise control. *bf
Also reported on the 1998 Ford Explorer
Other wheel or tire problem
Other speed control problem
Other body or interior problem
Tire blowout or tread separation
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 67 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 cruise control failure happen on the 1998 Ford Explorer?
Across 27 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 100,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 62,500 miles and a quarter after 122,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is cruise control failure on the 1998 Ford Explorer?
67 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