Federal complaint record · Ford Focus · model year 2001

2001 Ford Focus

Owners submitted 1,761 federal complaint reports about this model year, placing it at the 95th percentile for complaint intensity within its 1999 to 2003 compact sedan cohort. The largest reported component group is electrical. Sample sizes and limitations are shown below.

Electrical · 22% · group n = 521Fuel system · 14% · group n = 337Engine · 12% · group n = 281Brakes · 10% · group n = 228Suspension · 7% · group n = 154
1,761
Complaint records on file
58,000
Median mileage at the reported problem · 951 complaints reported mileage
22%
Of classified component reports name electrical · group n = 521
95th
Complaint-intensity percentile in a cohort of 29 model years

Electrical · 2 in ten classified complaints

Where this record concentrates

All failure files
Component group 01 · Electrical22%

Electrical reports

Ford Focus · model year 2001

Reports in this group521
Share of classified reports22%
Component groups on file6
Open the failure files

Adjacent model years · same badge, different data

The complaint signal has a shape

Compare model years
2000
1.0complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
3,686 matched incidents
This car
2001
0.4complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
1,761 matched incidents
2002
0.2complaints per 1,000 estimated vehicle-years
939 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
Stalling or shutdown · 356 reports

Reports describe the vehicle stalling or shutting off while driving

Cluster 1 of 32001 Ford Focus
Brake performance · 199 reports

Reports describe braking performance concerns

Cluster 2 of 32001 Ford Focus
Steering effort · 133 reports

Reports describe steering effort or control concerns

Cluster 3 of 32001 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.

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