Other body or interior problem on the 1999 Ford Explorer
3 crashes 1 fire 13 injuries 17 of the 141 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 other body or interior problem gets reported
Owners of the 1999 Ford Explorer report other body or interior problem at a median of 82,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 52,500 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles, from 55 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 35,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 160,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 125,647 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
13% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 34,000 miles | 52,979 miles | 83,000 miles | 124,000 miles | 159,647 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, 1 a fire and 13 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–$2,000 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 29 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2025, at a median of 900 miles, and latest on the 1996 at 130,000 miles.
By volume the 2017 carries the most reports, with 450; the 1999 has 141. 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.
Service bulletin oom 12 from ford was for the replacement of the camshaft tensioner in my 1999 explorer. It was replaced on 11/27/01 and now needs to be replaced again. The ford service center refuses to see the same componet continues to fail again and again as their problem. *jb
In re to the driver's seat: the consumer's daughter was in the back seat when she asked to place the seat in an upright position as it was lying against her knees. The consumer found a single bolt which had snapped off and caused the seat to remain in the down position. (the metal looked as if it were defective) *ak *scc *jb
On july 13, 2003, I was driving my 1999 explorer and the bolt holding the seatback up snapped and the seat flopped back. I had my family in the car. I spoke with ford who told me to take the car to the dealer to look at the seat.*ak also, the car has a history of stalling while moving. It has happened on the highway several tmes and luckily has not LED to an accident. I have taken it to ford several times to discuss the problem and I have been told there is nothing that can be done until the "check engine" light comes on. They apparently can not diagnose the problem until the car's computer senses a problem.
Also reported on the 1999 Ford Explorer
Other wheel or tire problem
Wiper or washer failure
Other speed control problem
Tire blowout or tread separation
Other powertrain problem
Other engine problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 141 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 other body or interior problem happen on the 1999 Ford Explorer?
Across 55 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 82,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 52,500 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 other body or interior problem on the 1999 Ford Explorer?
141 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