Overheating on the 2013 Ford Focus
2 crashes 2 injuries 4 of the 57 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 overheating gets reported
Owners of the 2013 Ford Focus report overheating at a median of 67,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 22,500 miles and a quarter after 97,500 miles, from 42 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 102,000 miles. It is the 13th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 12,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 140,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 126,945 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.
29% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13,500 miles | 22,000 miles | 66,453 miles | 97,174 miles | 140,445 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 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 $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 14 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2005, at a median of 30,000 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 190,000 miles.
By volume the 2012 carries the most reports, with 77; the 2013 has 57. 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.
For a few months prior I had noticed a shuttering stuttering type feeling when coasting or at at stop, almost like the car was going to stall. On 9/13 I was in stop and go traffic going up a hill into a dodger game when all the sudden a warning popped up on the screen informing me that the transmission had overheated and I needed to pull over, stop the car and wait for 8 minutes. When I attempted to drive the car to pull over the engine would rev but the car didn't move, then it started doing large lurches forward. It was impossible to get out of the traffic and move the car to safety without further endangering myself, my passengers, and the other vehicles around me. The smell was so bad I actually got out of the car at one point thinking it might explode. This went on for about half an hour as I tried to get to safety. I took the car in for repairs the next morning and it was in the shop for a week. I got it back and could tell there was still something wrong because the shaking was now so bad I would get motion sick anytime the car was at a stop. 5 days after picking it up I took it back to the shop. Again, they had the car for…
For a few months prior I had noticed a shuttering stuttering type feeling when coasting or at at stop, almost like the car was going to stall. On 9/13 I was in stop and go traffic going up a hill into a dodger game when all the sudden a warning popped up on the screen informing me that the transmission had overheated and I needed to pull over, stop the car and wait for 8 minutes. When I attempted to drive the car to pull over the engine would rev but the car didn't move, then it started doing large lurches forward. It was impossible to get out of the traffic and move the car to safety without further endangering myself, my passengers, and the other vehicles around me. The smell was so bad I actually got out of the car at one point thinking it might explode. This went on for about half an hour as I tried to get to safety. I took the car in for repairs the next morning and it was in the shop for a week. I got it back and could tell there was still something wrong because the shaking was now so bad I would get motion sick anytime the car was at a stop. 5 days after picking it up I took it back to the shop. Again, they had the car for…
Automated manual 6 speed transmission has been exhibiting clutch shuddering for at least 6 months, dealer ordered new clutches 3 months ago and are still on back order. Saturday may 30th 2015 while pulling away from a stop light making a left turn at approx 5-10 MPH the RPM went to around 5000 like the clutch was slipping then started shifting extremely rough and RPM up and down while the gas pedal was held steady at what should have been a low RPM state of no more than 2000-3000 RPM. While at city speeds going up a long hill it seemed like the transmission was stuck in 5th or 6th gear and would not shift even in sport manual mode and bogged down until finally with the gas held down it jerked violently and down shifted. When parking several miles later it would not go into reverse. This was a moderately warm day of about 75 degrees after a 25 mile freeway drive, the engine was not overheating and the oil level was good. The next morning my diagnostic computer (a can obd2) detected the dtc codes p2862 and p2837 and the car is apparently working normally after clearing the codes and driving around the block.
Also reported on the 2013 Ford Focus
Other powertrain problem
Other engine problem
Other steering problem
Other electrical problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Other fuel system problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 57 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 2013 Ford Focus?
Across 42 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 67,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 22,500 miles and a quarter after 97,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is overheating on the 2013 Ford Focus?
57 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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