Other body or interior problem on the 2016 Ford Explorer
2 crashes 1 fire 5 injuries 8 of the 425 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 2016 Ford Explorer report other body or interior problem at a median of 80,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 48,000 miles and a quarter after 101,000 miles, from 200 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 23,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 127,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 104,400 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.
17% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22,700 miles | 47,750 miles | 79,500 miles | 100,888 miles | 127,100 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 crash, 1 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–$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 2016 has 425. 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.
Sept 31st - with 358 miles and less than owned for 24 hours all adaptive equipment failed, flashing ABS failure loss of speed control. Oct 1st car taken to jclewis ford in savanah,ga, was called by the dealer approximately 3 hours later and was told to pick the car and the only problem was to realign and reset computer software. I took the car and drove 39 miles and we sustained a total repeat of the problems. At this point the dealership said they had no idea at point what was wrong or the cause of the problem, approximately five days later I was told the cause was the failure of the rear ABS wheel sensor which they told me was replaced and also that they had driven the car for few days and it was now operational. I did pick up the car and again within a few miles we sustained the same failure with an added feature I backed out of my parking space and found that I had lost any ability to move forward and there was a severe grinding noise emanating from transmission, drove the back to dealer ship for the fourth time and was told that even though I was told that the ford dealer mechanic did not replace any parts as I was told. As…
Purchased a new 2016 ford explorer xlt in august 2015. When vehicle was ready for pick up we noticed that the driver side middle row seat material was pulled away from the foam cushion. The selling dealer said they would put a warranty claim into ford to get the seat fixed. We received a call from dealer a few weeks later and said ford would fix the seat and take the vehicle to a dealer closer to our area to have it fixed under warranty. We took the vehicle to the dealer and the warranty person there would not even come out and look at it since we did not buy it there. I called the ford cs line and made a complaint. They called the dealer and asked them to look at the seat. We took the vehicle back to them and they took pictures and sent to ford for warranty approval. We received a call from cs and they said the pictures did not show any damage and no repairs would be made. I asked the cs person if I could send my pictures of the seat and they said ok. I sent pictures of the seat damage and ford went back and forth with me and even got a warranty rep involved. The bottom line is that the seat cushion is pulled away from the foam…
Had my ford explorer 6-mo's and was driving with family approx 45-MPH in traffic on a main street when the gas padel just stop working had to try to get to side of road, very dangerous !! . Car was at ford dealer getting fixed from 3/14- 3/25 , it needed a new throttle body air intake, (at4z*9e926*b ) and motor asy.
Also reported on the 2016 Ford Explorer
Other engine problem
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
Other steering problem
Water pump failure
Exhaust leak or fumes in the cabin
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 425 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 2016 Ford Explorer?
Across 200 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 48,000 miles and a quarter after 101,000 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 2016 Ford Explorer?
425 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.7 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