Unclassified problem on the 2004 Ford Ranger
9 crashes 8 injuries 17 of the 87 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.
Only 25 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 2004 Ford Ranger report unclassified problem at a median of 95,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 62,500 miles and a quarter after 130,000 miles, from 25 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 51st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 40,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 150,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 109,760 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.
8% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 39,000 miles | 63,400 miles | 94,000 miles | 130,000 miles | 148,760 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, 9 a crash and 8 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 19 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2019, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2025 at 140,000 miles.
By volume the 2004 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.
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.
I had an accident at stowe mtn. Resort on route 108 that involved a front end collision about 20 degress from front center of the ford ranger truck. I hit a stone wall at about 25 to 30 miles an hour and the frame of the truck has to be replaced by insurance. Damage was 6922.77 before the repair has been completed in damage. Hit a wall and ford says no problem with truck as far as air bags, but they did not deploy. The driver nor front passenger air bag deployed! Contacted dealer and ford and they say there is no complaint because the air bag did not malfunction. Hit wall with truck, ford motor co. Consumer complaint in florida (800 number),and dealer, formula ford of barre, vt. *nm
While driving my 2004 ford ranger, only had 60,000 km's on it, down the highway at about 80 kmph, the left side of the rear axle broke, as I was going over a bridge causing loss of control and striking a bridge, tearing up 20 feet of guard rail and railing 5 times. The air bags also did not deploy as they should have as front bumper hit bridge rail directly. Was cleaned up by police and tow company. Insurance company had the vehicle and believe they may have scraped it as they did not want it on the road again. *tr
The SRS passenger airbag on/off switch has a lightbulb that is hard wired into the board inside the switch module. It has a relatively short life span, and when the bulb burns out is causes the module to deactivate the SRS airbags in both the driver's side and the passengers side. This causes the occupant(s) to be unprotected as the airbags cannot deploy in the event of a collision. This is the 2nd occurrence of this in my vehicle in the last 4 years, and from what I have been able to glean in online research, this is a "known" problem...and no doubt one that ford motor company is aware of, or should be aware of the existence of the problem, as I personally have reported this to ford motor company. Ford motor company's willful neglect to remedy this situation by not changing the switch to allow for the easy and inexpensive replacement of a $1.00 LED lightbulb to allow either the owner of the vehicle or a qualified automobile mechanic with the capabilities of testing for the continuity of the device is being done for the greed of the bottom line, and their total lack of care for the safety of the vehicle occupant(s). I have…
Also reported on the 2004 Ford Ranger
Airbag inflator rupture
Other body or interior problem
Other engine problem
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
Other powertrain problem
Other wheel or tire problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 87 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 87 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 unclassified problem happen on the 2004 Ford Ranger?
Across 25 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 95,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 62,500 miles and a quarter after 130,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2004 Ford Ranger?
87 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.7 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