For every car sold, owners filed 2.2 times as many complaints about the 2013 MKZ as about the typical MKZ year.
Safety complaints filed by owners in the first three years, per 1,000 sold.
2.2 times this nameplate’s own median
Counted from 27 complaints filed in the first three years, of 122 ever. 95% lower bound 0.56. Not counted: 2 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 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 0.17 | 5 | |
| 2009 | 0.11 | 3 | |
| 2010 | 0.40 | 9 | |
| 2011 | 0.16 | 4 | |
| 2012 | 0.36 | 10 | |
| 2013 | 0.89 | 27 | |
| 2014 | 0.54 | 18 | |
| 2015 | 0.46 | 15 | |
| 2016 | 0.42 | 13 | |
| 2017 | 0.55 | 16 | |
| 2018 | 0.30 | 7 |
No phrase appears often enough in these complaints to describe them reliably.
No clear early or late pattern.
The VIN an owner files names the engine, which places 113 of this year’s 122 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.7 L 6-cylinder | 51 | 22% | too few mileages |
| 2.0 L 4-cylinder | 37 | 8% | too few mileages |
| 2.0 L 4-cylinder hybrid | 25 | 8% | 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. 9 complaints are not in the table: no usable VIN, an engine vPIC could not decode, or an engine with fewer than 25 complaints.
Door Latch Failure
For every car sold, owners filed 2.2 times as many complaints about the 2013 MKZ as about the typical MKZ year. The typical year is the median across its model years.
The parts owners named most often in complaints filed to date: Electrical System (19), Steering (19), Power Train (17).
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 MKZ years: for every car sold, owners filed 2.2 times as many complaints about the 2013 MKZ as about the typical MKZ year.
No guide we read covers the MKZ.
Example records behind this page, each on NHTSA’s own site: