2023 Ford F-150 Lightning Reliability Report

Sunroof glass shatters with a loud bang, with no impact, while the truck is driving or parked. This is the most alarming pattern. The A/C stops cooling after an hour or two of highway driving, which also leaves the windows unable to defrost. Other filings describe a shifter that sticks or has extra detents, which leads to wrong-gear selection. In some trucks, shifting cargo trips the frunk's emergency release and unlatches the hood while driving. The infotainment screen can freeze at startup and take the backup camera with it. Recall parts delays for the rear hub bolt also appear here.

Braking fails to respond as expected in low-speed situations, and two reports end in collisions. In one, the truck rolls backward when switching from reverse to drive in one-pedal mode. In the other, the truck does not slow despite a hard press on the pedal. Other reports describe the drive mode switching from sport to normal at highway speed, which removes the expected regenerative braking. Some trucks engage the parking brake at random when they stop. One report describes weak brakes alongside a cascade of warning lights. One owner found residue weeping from brake line crimps near the master cylinder.

Power steering and brake assist disappear at highway speed, along with a flood of warning messages. In some cases the truck then shuts down completely. In one case the dealer traced this to a faulty 12V battery. Another report describes steering assist jerking the wheel and then locking at 70 mph on a truck with about 1500 miles. Separate complaints describe the truck bogging down when accelerating through a turn into traffic, and a gauge cluster that goes fully dark so the driver cannot see the speed.

The truck surges forward at low speed while the driver lightly presses the brake. One such report ends in a crash into shrubs with an injury. The opposite failure also appears: adaptive cruise brakes hard on the highway after misreading a speed limit, dropping from 65 to 35 mph. Collision avoidance slams on the brakes in freeway traffic during a front camera fault. One-pedal mode sometimes lets the truck keep rolling instead of stopping. Cruise control has also engaged at walking speed and pushed the truck toward a garage door.

The infotainment system freezes on startup, so the backup camera is unavailable for 30 to 90 seconds. Sometimes the screen shows a stale, frozen image that hides people or cars behind the truck. One owner says this happens on about 50% of starts. A separate fault makes the A/C stop blowing from any vent even though the blower motor runs, which leaves the windows unable to defrost. One report describes the sunroof shattering at 70 mph with no impact, and a dealer confirmed it.

Pre-collision alerts go off on empty roads with no cars or pedestrians nearby. In other cases, every driver-assist system shuts down at startup, including blind spot monitoring, lane keeping, reverse sensing, and forward collision warning. One truck also pulled its steering wheel off-center until a calibration message appeared. Related reports describe the truck drifting toward a ditch, slow starts after rain or a wash, and a false trailer message. These faults recur across several dates, and dealers cannot duplicate them.

A rear axle bolt shears off, with one failure at about 10K miles. Both filings describe this in PowerBoost hybrid trucks and link it to recall 23V896, but in both the dealer or Ford says the VIN is not covered. One owner says the flaw affects PowerBoost trucks with the max tow package across several model years. The same hub bolt failure appears in the power train complaints, where it can cause loss of drive or roll-away.