Verified government source

NHTSA complaint #11765386

This page summarizes an official U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration owner complaint. Use the verification links below to confirm the record directly with NHTSA.

Vehicle

2023 FORD BRONCO

Manufacturer

Ford Motor Company

Components

VISIBILITY/WIPER

Dates

Incident: 09/16/2026
Filed: 09/18/2026

Owner complaint summary

Rear defroster connector becomes detached from the defroster grid rendering it inoperable. Ford has acknowledged it is a common issue due to poor design. My local dealership repaired the broken tab and it once again broke off within a week or two. When I returned to the dealership, they refused to cover it under the vehicles original owner warranty or their labor warranty for working on it previously. After some back and forth with management and Ford Customer Care, they told me they have changed the design of the entire rear glass and the only way to fix it would be to pay $1600~ to have it replaced with the updated design. Upon researching the issue online, it is clear that the rear defroster has an astonishingly high failure rate, and Ford should be pushed to offer a better solution than to charge owners to fix something that was sold to them defective. To learn more about this issue, simply search “Bronco Rear Defroster” and you will see the amount of owners complaining

This is an owner complaint filed with NHTSA (ODI #11765386). It is not automatically an official recall, investigation outcome, or manufacturer admission unless the complaint text itself describes one.

Official record ID (ODI): 11765386. This page is the human-readable source link used across afterwarranty. The raw JSON link proxies NHTSA's public API for machine verification; prefer this page when reading the complaint.