For every car sold, owners filed about as many complaints about the 2021 Gladiator as about the typical Gladiator year. Among the 4 Gladiator years with enough complaints to compare, owners filed the fewest about the 2023 (0.59 per 1,000 sold) and the most about the 2020 (3.64).
Safety complaints filed by owners in the first three years, per 1,000 sold.
1.0 times this nameplate’s own median
Counted from 160 complaints filed in the first three years, of 294 ever. 95% lower bound 1.62. Not counted: 9 complaints that reported only that a recall repair was unavailable, not a failure.
The model year carries far more information than the badge, so this is the comparison that matters. The bar is how many complaints each rate rests on.
| Model year | Per 1,000 | Complaints | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 3.64 | 214 | |
| 2021 | 1.91 | 160 | |
| 2022 | 0.70 | 59 | |
| 2023 | 0.59 | 39 |
Phrases over-represented in these complaints compared with the same component on every other vehicle. Counts are complaints containing the phrase.
| wobble | 37 | 39% | |
| death wobble | 28 | 29% | |
| violent | 13 | 14% | |
| slowed | 12 | 13% |
| axle | 22 | 30% | |
| leaking | 19 | 26% | |
| rear axle | 18 | 25% | |
| right rear | 11 | 15% | |
| axle seal | 11 | 15% | |
| seal | 11 | 15% |
| malfunction reproduced | 18 | 34% | |
| fca technical | 17 | 32% | |
| shops documented | 15 | 28% | |
| recreated independent | 15 | 28% | |
| advisor claimed | 14 | 26% | |
| who expressed | 13 | 25% |
Failures cluster early, which is the signature of how the car was built rather than of wear. A low-mileage example has not yet passed the risk window.
The VIN an owner files names the engine, which places 290 of this year’s 294 complaints. Sales by engine are not published, so these are not rates and say nothing about which engine drew more complaints. What can be compared is what each engine’s owners reported.
| Engine | Complaints | About the engine or fuel system | Of those, before 30,000 miles |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.6 L 6-cylinder | 232 | 16% | too few mileages |
| 3.0 L 6-cylinder turbo diesel | 58 | 52% | too few mileages |
Engines as NHTSA’s VIN decoder (vPIC) reads them from the first eleven characters of each VIN. “Turbo” is shown only where every VIN records one; the decoder leaves it blank on many turbo engines. 4 complaints are not in the table: no usable VIN, an engine vPIC could not decode, or an engine with fewer than 25 complaints.
High pressure fuel pump failure
For every car sold, owners filed about as many complaints about the 2021 Gladiator as about the typical Gladiator year. Among the 4 Gladiator years with enough complaints to compare, owners filed the fewest about the 2023 (0.59 per 1,000 sold) and the most about the 2020 (3.64). The typical year is the median across its model years.
The parts owners named most often in complaints filed to date: Steering (95), Power Train (73), Engine (53). The phrases they used are listed above.
Complaint records cannot settle that on their own. They count safety problems owners chose to report to the federal government, not every repair. What they do show is how this year compares with the other Gladiator years: for every car sold, owners filed about as many complaints about the 2021 Gladiator as about the typical Gladiator year.
Among years with enough complaints to compare, the 2023, at 0.59 per 1,000 sold. Every Gladiator year, ranked.
No guide we read covers the Gladiator.
Example records behind this page, each on NHTSA’s own site: