Ford F-250

Which Ford F-250 years should you avoid?

Going by 4,364 owner complaints filed with NHTSA, the Ford F-250 years to avoid are 2000, 1999, 2001, 2003 and 1994.

• 2000326 complaints, 2.3× a typical F-250 year, most often about the tires; and 2.7× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (14 fires, 33 crashes, 7 deaths).
• 1999581 complaints, 4.0× a typical F-250 year, most often about the tires.
• 20013.5× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (24 fires, 16 crashes, 4 deaths).
• 20032.4× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (8 fires, 6 crashes, 1 death).
• 19942.2× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (23 fires, 5 crashes).

1 more year cleared the same bar; it is marked in the table below.

Better bets: among years old enough for a low count to mean something, the 2013 drew the fewest complaints without an unusual share of serious ones.

How this is worked out: each year is compared with a typical year of the same model, which takes most of the difference in sales out of it, and its share of serious failures is compared with every other car of the same model year, because older cars were complained about differently. A year needs 25 complaints to be judged at all. Complaints are unverified owner reports. Full method →