Wiring harness or short circuit on the 2004 Ford F-350
When wiring harness or short circuit gets reported
Owners of the 2004 Ford F-350 report wiring harness or short circuit at a median of 5,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 20,000 miles, from 12 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 95,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 93,229 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.
75% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3,100 miles | 4,000 miles | 4,000 miles | 18,821 miles | 96,329 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
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, every year of the Ford F-350
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.
Ford f-350 diesel-2004 car shut down in the passing lane on pa turnpike. Towed to ford...no insulation on wiring harness, shorted out the truck. The truck stopped dead in the road..now the ford dealer fixed it by putting insulation over it to get me back on the road. It had been in the shop the week before, and the week before that because I complained of losing power on the road when I travel. I don't want to have a fire with my family! *nm
When truck originally purchased bubble on tire, and dealer said they all come that way, tire went flat while parked about a month later, no holes, we were told tire was no good, had to be replaced. Truck kept stalling, loss of brakes and steering while navigating downhill, solenoid assembly replaced. 2 days later kept stalling. Dealer had truck 21 days to rebuild transmission, again solenoid assembly replaced after that replaced wiring harness. Since then, caliper broke and brakes went, turbo has been replaced. Vehicle has repeatedly stalled, noises from rear end with no dx. Now engine smoking, loss of power, rpms jump while idling. Truck has also repeatedly changed gears automatically, ie while at red light truck would jump to 3rd and then truck would stall. *jb
When truck originally purchased bubble on tire, and dealer said they all come that way, tire went flat while parked about a month later, no holes, we were told tire was no good, had to be replaced. Truck kept stalling, loss of brakes and steering while navigating downhill, solenoid assembly replaced. 2 days later kept stalling. Dealer had truck 21 days to rebuild transmission, again solenoid assembly replaced after that replaced wiring harness. Since then, caliper broke and brakes went, turbo has been replaced. Vehicle has repeatedly stalled, noises from rear end with no dx. Now engine smoking, loss of power, rpms jump while idling. Truck has also repeatedly changed gears automatically, ie while at red light truck would jump to 3rd and then truck would stall. *jb
Also reported on the 2004 Ford F-350
Other engine problem
Other fuel system problem
Other powertrain problem
Other wheel or tire problem
Other speed control problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 12 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 wiring harness or short circuit happen on the 2004 Ford F-350?
Across 12 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 5,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 20,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is wiring harness or short circuit on the 2004 Ford F-350?
12 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 3.7 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