Other body or interior problem on the 1997 Ford F-150
3 crashes 1 fire 8 injuries 12 of the 253 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 1997 Ford F-150 report other body or interior problem at a median of 102,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 85,000 miles and a quarter after 170,000 miles, from 30 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 67,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 190,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 124,400 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 66,400 miles | 84,000 miles | 102,500 miles | 169,528 miles | 190,800 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 8 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 30 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2023, at a median of 15,000 miles, and latest on the 1996 at 180,000 miles.
By volume the 1997 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.
Rear sliding window leak, resealed multiple times to no avail.... Leaks both from where frame attaches to body and from cracks in window frame itself, both left and right sides at top. Window frame requires replacement with newer manufactured unit (different design from newer model year). *nlm
Hood pops unlocked while driving.seat belts on front seats do not retract fully when unbuckled, hang on floor between seat and door. Upon opening of door, the loose belt loop falls past the door seal area and upon door closure becomes lodged between door and jamb. When vehicle re-entry is made by driver or passenger, and belt is put on, a false tension is achieved by door jamb seal. This leaves up to 10 to 14 inches of loose belt that feels like it is actually tensioned as to protect the occupant. This loose belt slack continues as the belt extends and retracts in normal, non inertia locked mode. Only upon heavy breaking, or forward force by occupant does the belt slip past the lower door jamb seal and extends the belts reach. This can cause a fatality for one of the following four reasons. First, on frontal impact, the belt allows the driver or passenger to be thrust forward and either come into undue contact with the dash or steering wheel. Secondly, the falsely tensioned belt allows the driver or passenger to be propelled too close to a deploying front airbag, causing undue frontal contact with airbag which can result in…
Both driver and passenger doors have about a 1/4 inch crack in them just aft of the window lower corner. For some reason these cracks were fixed on fleet trucks but not personal trucks. *ak
Also reported on the 1997 Ford F-150
Other wheel or tire problem
Other engine problem
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
Other suspension problem
Other electrical problem
Cruise control failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 253 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 1997 Ford F-150?
Across 30 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 102,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 85,000 miles and a quarter after 170,000 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 1997 Ford F-150?
253 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.6 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