Other electrical problem on the 2006 Ford Explorer
2 fires 2 of the 22 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 electrical problem gets reported
Owners of the 2006 Ford Explorer report other electrical problem at a median of 60,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles, from 20 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 6th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 140,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 137,000 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.
35% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4,900 miles | 27,450 miles | 60,500 miles | 111,809 miles | 141,900 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, 2 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 $250–$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 28 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2010, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2025 at 140,000 miles.
By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 102; the 2006 has 22. 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.
2006 ford explorer eddie baurer- within 12 hours of purchasing the car, the starter caught on fire, car was out of service 1 week. Transmission hesitated from a cold start especiallly bad when pulling out into traffic. Engine roared at times, sounded like a jet taking off. Dealer said this was normal, it was the engine fan ???? Car lurched forward when starting on several occasions. At first service dept agreed there was a problem with 8 cylinder transmission and that they were no fixes but then the ford rep got involved and suddenly they couldn't find any problems with the car. They suggested that our only recouse was to go thru the lemon law which we did. It was a long drawn out process but after 6 months of dealing with the situation, the lemon arbitration rulled in our favor and ford was required to buy back the explorer. I had a ford expedition for 9 years and loved it but after this fiasco with the explorer and ford's refusal to stand behind their product, I will not ever buy another ford. I now have a toyota 4runner and couldn't be happier. While it doesn't have some of the special features of the explorer, the piece of…
(1) I have owned my 2006 ford explorer for one year and four months. There are approximately 21,000 miles currently on it. It has had a lunging problem starting weeks after I purchased it. I have taken it into two separate ford dealers in attempts to have it fixed for a total of six times. They have attempted to update the computer on two separate occasions. Each time it is fixed for a couple of weeks up to a couple of months, however, the clunking and jerking once again show. I believe that they unplug the battery each time it is taken in, allowing the computer to "forget" its adaptive learning. (2) when I take off from a stop it hesitates and then slams into gear causing the vehicle to accelerate unpredictably. Furthermore, when stopping it feels like it is freewheeling in between first and second gear with an abrupt stop and a jerk that causes a violent jerking of the vehicle. The feeling it provides is one of being rearended. (3) the only thing that has been done is to reprogram the computer and unhooking the battery so the computer forgets its adaptive learning. This is a quick fix for ford and does not solve the problem. *tr
My 2006 ford explorer will just shut off when you are running 55-60 MPH. This seems to happen usually after it rains. My alarm goes off periodically when nobody is around it. Ford cannot seem to duplicate the problem. *tr
Also reported on the 2006 Ford Explorer
Other powertrain problem
Radiator or coolant leak
Other engine problem
Other brake problem
Other speed control problem
Complete transmission failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 22 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 electrical problem happen on the 2006 Ford Explorer?
Across 20 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 60,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other electrical problem on the 2006 Ford Explorer?
22 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.5 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