Unclassified problem on the 1999 Ford F-350 SD
2 crashes 1 injury 3 of the 5 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.
Only 4 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When unclassified problem gets reported
There are 5 reports of unclassified problem on the 1999 Ford F-350 SD, 4 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
It is the 39th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 112,500 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 and 1 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 12 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2005 at 125,000 miles.
By volume the 2019 carries the most reports, with 37; the 1999 has 5. 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.
Dt: the consumer purchased a ford f350 extended cab dually in 1999. Three years ago the tire cable that holds the spare tire underneath the vehicle broke while pulling into a driveway. The consumer took vehicle to dealership and they replaced the spare tire cable free of charge. The dealer had no explanation as to why it happened. Since purchase the spare tire had not been used or touched by anyone. Recently, when at a tire shop while getting tires replaced and an oil change the serviceman noted there was no spare tire underneath the vehicle. The cable was again broken. The consumer was not aware of this, and did not know when the spare tire cable broke. The consumer contacted ford dealer, but the warranty expired and the dealer would not replace the spare tire cable. The consumer contacted ford customer service, and they too declined to offer any assistance. The consumer felt this was a safety issue because the spare tire cable could break on these vehicles, causing an accident or injury to others. *ak *jb
I , being the owner with a passenger, of a f- 350 7.3 crew cab diesal 4x4 was in an accident after going over black ice on I-40 near flagstaff az. Resulting a roll over and taking out a 14 inch pine tree and landing on its passenger side when it was all said and done! The air bags in the pick- up did not deploy !
While driving a 1999 ford f-350 I hit a small bump in a parking lot and both air bags deployed. I took the truck in to a local ford dealer tom holzer ford who refused to look at it and told me it doesn't happen that way. I am in the process of replacing the air bags but have heard after the incident that this has happened to others. I am concerned that I will replace the air bags and they will deploy again, and cause some type of accident. *tr
Also reported on the 1999 Ford F-350 SD
Other wheel or tire problem
Misfire or rough idle
Other engine problem
Parking brake failure
Loss of braking
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 5 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 5 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 unclassified problem happen on the 1999 Ford F-350 SD?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 115,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 1999 Ford F-350 SD?
5 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