AtWhatMileage
Cooling · 26 owner reports

Overheating on the 2014 Ford F-150

1 fire 1 of the 26 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.

Reports of this failure 26
With an odometer reading 23
Reports per 1,000 built 0.0 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 26%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 1
Typical repair $400–$3,500
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 15th

When overheating gets reported

Owners of the 2014 Ford F-150 report overheating at a median of 55,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 120,000 miles, from 23 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 102,000 miles. It is the 15th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 25,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 155,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 132,800 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.

26% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 23 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
23,200 miles 37,500 miles 53,000 miles 119,000 miles 156,000 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 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 $400–$3,500 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 19 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 25,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 225,000 miles.

By volume the 2018 carries the most reports, with 30; the 2014 has 26. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Tl* the contact owns a 2014 ford f-150. While driving approximately 75 MPH, the rear passenger window shattered due to the overheating of the rear glass window defroster. The contact drove the vehicle to the dealer to be diagnosed and repaired. The approximate failure mileage was 15,200.

15,200 miles NHTSA complaint 1273623 filed 2016-04-07

Tl* the contact owns a 2014 ford f-150 towing a cougar fifth wheel camper. While driving approximately 60 MPH, the vehicle wobbled when the brake pedal was depressed. The dealer diagnosed that the rotors were overheating. The rotors needed to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired. The manufacturer was not notified. The failure mileage was 24,000.

24,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1356855 filed 2017-02-17

F-150 at 34,000 miles, under warranty, and only serviced by ford mechanics - when towing 6,500 lb trailer I receive message "transmission overheating powering down". Truck then gears itself down and does not exceed 45 MPH. This consistently now occurs when engine temperature hits 215. When towing I can not exceed 55 MPH or temperature immediately climbs to 215 and transmission overheats. I have to pull over and let engine cool. This problem started in may 2017 and has never previously occurred. Courtesy ford in pocatello, id repeatedly states there is nothing wrong and refuses to take any corrective action. Because of this issue I have cancelled several camping vactions for my family as I fear truck will suffer a severe breakdown and courtesy ford will again refuse to honor warranty service.

34,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1397901 filed 2017-08-06

Also reported on the 2014 Ford F-150

Other powertrain problem

276 reports median 87k

Other engine problem

132 reports median 71k

Other visibility problem

129 reports median 51k

Other brake problem

103 reports median 38k

Other steering problem

101 reports median 80k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 26 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 overheating happen on the 2014 Ford F-150?

Across 23 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 55,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 120,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is overheating on the 2014 Ford F-150?

26 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.0 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