AtWhatMileage
Suspension · 58 owner reports

Other suspension problem on the 2012 Ford F-350

1 crash 1 of the 58 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 58
With an odometer reading 39
Reports per 1,000 built 18 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 10%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 1
Typical repair $350–$2,000
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 1st

When other suspension problem gets reported

Owners of the 2012 Ford F-350 report other suspension problem at a median of 120,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 62,500 miles and a quarter after 150,000 miles, from 39 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 100,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 35,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 225,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 189,349 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.

10% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 39 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
35,651 miles 63,500 miles 120,000 miles 150,250 miles 225,000 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 $350–$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 14 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2002, at a median of 30,000 miles, and latest on the 2009 at 140,000 miles.

By volume the 2012 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.

What owners wrote

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

I bought a salvaged f 3-50 king ranch. Im having the same problem some of you are having. I thought maybe I got screwed for buying a salvaged vehicle, but you all are having same problem. Death wobble. At 60mph my truck sometimes shakes extremely bad. I thought tires were out of balance so I got that done and nope problem still there. I think its a major safety hazard. If ford put out a recall to fix the problem is the only way I could get mine fixed, because warranty was cancelled after crash. Fingers crossed they do!!!!! *tr

34,256 miles NHTSA complaint 1065047 filed 2014-05-14

At 55 miles an hour on rough pavement, the truck begin to violently shake back and forth. This shaking and jerking caused me to enter into the oncoming lane of traffic. In order to regain I had to slam on the brake pedal control thereby getting the speed down to 40 miles an hour. Ford suggested I checking the ball joints and the steering stabilizers. After spending over $600 in parts (not covered by warranty)and replacing the whole front end linkage, the vehicle then drove fine until I reached another 45 thousand miles or approximately 90 thousand miles total on truck. Now it has repeated the same process all over again throwing me into the opposite lane of traffic. The reason for purchasing a new truck is to have a save vehicle to use for performing my job. This truck has all original equipment and has not been altered in any way prior to this experience. This is definitely a safety issue that needs to be addressed by ford. I have found an aftermarket stabilizer bar that corrected the problem, however I feel that ford should recall and repair this problem with the proper equipment before someone looses their life of it. *tr

42,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1080189 filed 2014-06-27

The first time it happened to me I was on a trip in canada from texas. The road was a little bumpy (farm road) I was driving 30 m/h accelerating to get to 60 m/h when all of sudden the truck started shaking so badly my head hit the side window. I couldn't steer the truck at all I slowed down to 0m/h put it on park then started rolling slowly and it was gone. It did it to me 3 times on a 3 weeks period. Since the roads are bad up there I kinda left it as that and told my husband about it when I came back to texas. We had the tires rotated and they couldn't see anything else wrong under the truck. I was months without having anything similar happening to me and yesterday I am on I-10 rolling about 65m/h and there it goes again and it was worst then the other times I fell my truck was about to explode from under me shaking to no end and no steering control at all even when letting go the gas it kept going and shaking and my truck shake its way from one lane to another one and finally stopped 3 inches from the retaining wall of the overpass. I could have killed myself. I had no more control at all on this truck which is a (2012 f-350…

36,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1148178 filed 2015-01-15

Also reported on the 2012 Ford F-350

Other steering problem

57 reports median 116k

Other engine problem

24 reports median 55k

Fuel pump failure

9 reports median 11k

Other wheel or tire problem

8 reports median 71k

Other powertrain problem

6 reports median 42k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 58 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 suspension problem happen on the 2012 Ford F-350?

Across 39 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 120,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 62,500 miles and a quarter after 150,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other suspension problem on the 2012 Ford F-350?

58 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 18 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