2023 Ford Explorer — Problems & Complaints
NHTSA has 111 owner complaints on file for this vehicle. Every report below was filed by a real owner with the US government's road-safety agency.
Ford Explorer — Complaints by Model Year
Years flagged AVOID have at least twice this model's average complaint count — the strongest public-data signal of a bad year.
2,460 complaints
1,710 complaints
732 complaints
299 complaints
1,233 complaints
445 complaints
269 complaints
111 complaints
21 complaints
104 complaints
0 complaints
What Owners Complain About Most
Recent Owner Reports
On 11/27/2023, my family and I were in this vehicle as I was driving on a side street. Suddenly the engine shut down while I was driving. I was fortunate enough to pull the car into a parking lot to be towed to a nearby Ford dealer. After a week of research the problem, they could not find anything wrong and returned the car to me. A week later, as I was driving to a major …
Loose carpet under front seat. Could cause carpet on driver side to buckle up causing gas peddle issues. Had ford dealer look at it but refused to remedy issue. This could cause issues like Lexus had years ago with gas peddle sticking.
On 11-21-24, I was traveling down the interstate going at 60mph when a car began to urgently brake, I proceeded to hit the brakes as well and my car would not stop, at the time of the impact no air bag deployed, driver seat belt did not lock, my driver seat moved, no pre-collision assist came up for this accident. No prior issues or lights on dash.
As the passenger, following a passenger side impact, (T bone) I sustained 1st and 2nd degree burns extending from my ribs to my hip. To my knowledge the only airbags that inflated were the curtain air bags. Immediately upon impact I had a burning sensation on my right side that slowly began to spread. Once out of the car it was discovered that something had burned through 3 la…
While driving on a two lane, rural road at dusk, with adaptive cruise control turned on, the car suddenly applied the brakes (hard) and a red warning briefly appeared on the dashboard. (It was on too brief to read.) The brakes were released quite quickly, but the vehicle had slowed approximately 20 MPH. There was no other traffic on the road at the time. No animals were cross…
Recalls & Crash Tests
Complaints are one half of the picture — see the official recalls and NHTSA crash-test stars for the 2023 Ford Explorer, or check your exact car by VIN with the free VIN lookup.
Problems Checker
Any year, make and model: open the Car Problems Checker. Data: NHTSA (US DOT, public domain), cached up to 7 days.