Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure on the 2014 Ford F-150
1 crash 1 of the 42 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 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure gets reported
Owners of the 2014 Ford F-150 report control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure at a median of 105,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 140,000 miles, from 19 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 10th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 40,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 155,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 116,000 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.
11% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 39,000 miles | 62,251 miles | 104,000 miles | 140,080 miles | 155,000 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, 1 a crash 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 $700–$3,000 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 26 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2021, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 150,000 miles.
By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 127; the 2014 has 42. 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.
Tl* the contact owns 2014 ford f-150. The contact stated that the horn was not working. The vehicle was taken to the dealer three different times where the technician diagnosed that the body control module needed to be replaced and the blue tooth system needed to be reprogrammed. The vehicle was repaired but the failure recurred. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The vehicle was not further repaired. The failure mileage was 6,000 and the current mileage was 17,000.
The automatic locks on the doors stopped working on the vehicle. We took the vehicle to a local dealer and were told that the problem was electrical and could eventually impact all electrical functions in the vehicle. They said there was a short on one of the doors - they replaced the BCM and driver rear door latch which cost $900. As the vehicle was not even 2 years old, we could not understand how this could have happened and it was not covered under a warranty. Recently, we read of a recall on 2015-2017 ford f-150 trucks related to potential door problems ('frozen door latch or bent or kinked actuation cable') and were wondering if this was the same problem we experienced with our 2014 model.
While turning to the left I heard a sequelching noise. I then got a message to service my acutraction system. I would turn my truck off then back on and it would reset and go off. This took place for a few days. While message was on the lever for my turn signals would not stay activated. Today (9/25/2018) I got the message again. This time I also got a power steering assist failure and it became very difficult to turn. Truck only had 66,000 miles on it. I have got rid of truck because of it. I have also had a fault in the air bag control module.
Also reported on the 2014 Ford F-150
Other powertrain problem
Other engine problem
Other visibility problem
Master cylinder or brake booster failure
Other brake problem
Other steering problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 42 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 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure happen on the 2014 Ford F-150?
Across 19 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 105,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 140,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure on the 2014 Ford F-150?
42 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