Other brake problem on the 2012 Ford Focus
7 crashes 2 injuries 9 of the 33 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 other brake problem gets reported
Owners of the 2012 Ford Focus report other brake problem at a median of 25,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 7,500 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles, from 26 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 23rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 107,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 102,500 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.
65% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000 miles | 7,063 miles | 24,913 miles | 79,717 miles | 107,500 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, 7 a crash and 2 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.
Putting it right typically runs $300–$1,800 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 2009, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2011 at 105,000 miles.
By volume the 2000 carries the most reports, with 224; the 2012 has 33. 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.
While backing out of a driveway the steering system failed, I rolled down a hill and into a wooded area. The system gave an indicator light of steering system failure and also the braking system did not engage. I lost complete control of the vehicle. *tr
I have experienced several potentially fatal occurrences related to left foot braking and the brake over throttle override software installed in my 2012 ford focus. When braking with the left foot and in a turn while feathering the throttle with the right foot, the automatic transmission shifts into neutral, the engine continues to rev without going into any gear. This condition has occurred no less than 22 times. The first incident happened while making a right hand turn but the next was a left hand turn. Although the second incident occurred crossing one lane of traffic, I would not like this condition to occur crossing 2 or 3 lanes of traffic and becoming a fatality. I am not the only person in the world who brakes using the left foot. Now that I know what is causing this issue, I can duplicate it even braking at any speed and in a straight line. Car has been to ford and had flashes of the computer installed with no change. Ford is aware of this problem through emails from the service manager at my dealership. This condition can result in a serious and potentially fatal accident. This fix for the so called toyota floor mat…
The vehicle was parked. I started it up and backed out of the parking space. I shifted into drive and began moving forward. After going approximately 20 feet the "I" sign illuminated on the instrument panel and the message "steering malfunction, needs service" came on, along with the alarm jingle. I tried to steer the car out of the middle of the drive lane and managed to get it over to the side, but the steering was practically frozen. I turned off the ignition and looked for any obvious signs of trouble, but could find none. After reading through the owner's manual and checking the engine compartment, I restarted the car (about 20 minutes after I shut it off) and no warning sign came on. I test drove it in the parking lot for a minute to see if the steering would function properly and then drove home and experienced no further problems. I took it to the ford autoway dealership for inspection and they diagnosed the problem as stemming from an ABS "corrupted" program. They told me the epas gets it power through the ABS. They rebooted the ABS program and I've had no further problems. *tr
Also reported on the 2012 Ford Focus
Other powertrain problem
Other steering problem
Other engine problem
Other body or interior problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Door latch or handle failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 33 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 brake problem happen on the 2012 Ford Focus?
Across 26 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 25,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 7,500 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other brake problem on the 2012 Ford Focus?
33 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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