AtWhatMileage
Fuel · 163 owner reports

Other fuel system problem on the 2011 Ford Fusion

2 crashes 1 injury 3 of the 163 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 163
With an odometer reading 150
Reports per 1,000 built 1.6 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 22%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 3
Typical repair $300–$2,200
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 8th

When other fuel system problem gets reported

Owners of the 2011 Ford Fusion report other fuel system problem at a median of 47,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 37,000 miles and a quarter after 60,000 miles, from 150 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 90,000 miles. It is the 8th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 26,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 76,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 49,793 miles across the middle 80% of reports.

Reports bunched into a band this tight usually mean the component has a life of its own: it goes at roughly the same mileage regardless of who owns it.

22% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 150 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
26,447 miles 37,358 miles 47,433 miles 60,213 miles 76,240 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.

Putting it right typically runs $300–$2,200 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 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2016, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 2009 at 120,000 miles.

By volume the 2010 carries the most reports, with 499; the 2011 has 163. 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.

What owners wrote

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

While driving ~55mph in left lane of a 3-lane interstate at morning rush hour, the engine lost power, continued running at ~1000rpm, but would not accelerate. The check engine and wrench lights were on. The car was nearly hit by numerous vehicles as I coasted to the emergency lane on the right side of the expressway. The engine was shut off, then restarted, and it was ok for several miles. The same scenario was repeated twice while driving to a nearby dealer. The throttle body was replaced at a cost of $650 since it was out of warranty. Service personnel told me that they had seen several of these same problems on fusions. This one dealer is most likely representative of others, so there must be a very large number of these problems occurring in nearly new vehicles. Why hasn't ford, where quality used to be job one, issued a recall? This car has been otherwise flawless up to this point. *tr

44,000 miles NHTSA complaint 935380 filed 2012-08-21

As we were traveling we suddenly began slowing to a halt. Though my husband was pressing the gas pedal and the engine was running, there was no response. Luckily he was able to steer the car to the shoulder before we stopped completely. We were on a sparsely traveled road at the time. After checking under the hood, repeatedly trying to push the pedal and calling roadside assistance, he finally turned the engine off and then restarted it. The throttle seemed to work fine and we continued to our destination. The following day the same thing occurred. Again we were not in heavy traffic and there was a shoulder available for us to get to. This time he immediately turned the engine off and restarted it with everything returning to normal. We were very fearful of this occurring in heavy traffic or where there was not a shoulder available. We took the car back to the dealer where they charged us $387.43 to replace the throttle body #ds7z-9e926-a. *tr

41,060 miles NHTSA complaint 944609 filed 2012-10-15

Made 10 mi trip to school. 1/2 - 1 hr later, made 1/2 mi trip to store. On return to school on highway lost throttle response until car was turned off and restarted. (wrench light on dash displayed.) 2 hrs later, lost throttle response when turning onto highway from school. Car responded as normal after restart. Ford dealership replaced etb, a71, gasket, and throttle body. Car has returned to normal function. *tr

20,000 miles NHTSA complaint 945438 filed 2012-10-19

Also reported on the 2011 Ford Fusion

Other steering problem

890 reports median 88k

Airbag inflator rupture

254 reports median 82k

Loss of power steering

233 reports median 82k

Other engine problem

233 reports median 45k

Other speed control problem

224 reports median 45k

Other powertrain problem

221 reports median 46k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 163 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 fuel system problem happen on the 2011 Ford Fusion?

Across 150 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 47,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 37,000 miles and a quarter after 60,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other fuel system problem on the 2011 Ford Fusion?

163 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.6 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