Federal complaint record · Ford Focus · model year 2012

2012 Ford Focus

Owners submitted 3,756 federal complaint reports about this model year, placing it at the 99th percentile for complaint intensity within its 2010 to 2014 compact sedan cohort. The largest reported component group is powertrain. Sample sizes and limitations are shown below.

Powertrain · 29% · group n = 1,456Steering · 19% · group n = 927Engine · 10% · group n = 500Other · 8% · group n = 373Electrical · 7% · group n = 355
3,756
Complaint records on file
67,000
Median mileage at the reported problem · 3,094 complaints reported mileage
29%
Of classified component reports name powertrain · group n = 1,456
99th
Complaint-intensity percentile in a cohort of 39 model years

Powertrain · 3 in ten classified complaints

Where this record concentrates

All failure files
Component group 01 · Powertrain29%

Powertrain reports

Ford Focus · model year 2012

Reports in this group1,456
Share of classified reports29%
Component groups on file6
Open the failure files

Adjacent model years · same badge, different data

The complaint signal has a shape

Compare model years
2011
0.0complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
113 matched incidents
This car
2012
1.2complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
3,756 matched incidents
2013
0.7complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
2,105 matched incidents

The line compares submitted complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years, not failures per 1,000 cars. Vehicle-years use compiled US sales, a 0.25 prior-calendar-year plus 0.75 current-calendar-year model-year allocation, and the shipped survival curve. Rates appear only where estimated vehicles in operation are at least 5,000.

From the record · recurring narrative clusters

What recurring complaint clusters describe

How clusters are built
Transmission behavior · 973 reports

Reports describe harsh shifting, slipping, or shuddering

Cluster 1 of 32012 Ford Focus
Steering effort · 729 reports

Reports describe steering effort or control concerns

Cluster 2 of 32012 Ford Focus
Stalling or shutdown · 529 reports

Reports describe the vehicle stalling or shutting off while driving

Cluster 3 of 32012 Ford Focus

Cluster summaries paraphrase recurring symptoms reported to NHTSA. They are aggregate descriptions, not individual verbatim reports.

Records through 2026-07-19Published 2026-08-02 · Updated 2026-07-19

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NHTSA consumer complaint records can reveal recurring patterns across published model years. MotorCensus summarizes those records as one complaint-signal index, with a 95% interval and sample size, updated with each data snapshot.

Browse all Ford records How the index works