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The Ford F-150 might be one of the best-selling half-ton trucks on the market, but that doesn’t make it trouble free. So, in this article we want to take a look at the 2022 Ford F-150 known problems.

Without a doubt, the F-150 is one of the most important vehicles for Ford Motor Co., and how well it performs for sales and profits is often a key indicator of how well the company overall will perform. Thus, this has pushed the 2022 Ford F-150 into a continual improvement loop with new features coming out annually instead of waiting for a mid-cycle refresh. This makes it more challenging to identify known problems for a single year, so we are going to look at the 2021 model year as well to round out our list.

We will reference three key sources of information for this article: CarComplaints.com, NHTSA.gov and ConsumerReports.org.

Major problems 2022 Ford F-150

Beginning with the engine — or engines since Ford offers a 2.7-liter EcoBoost V-6, 3.3-liter V-6, 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6, 5.0-liter V-8 and a PowerBoost hybrid for this model year — there are potentially a lot of issues. So, let’s break this down into what we know about engine reliability.

First, as we covered in the past, the EcoBoost engines make people nervous with a turbo replacement running into the thousands of dollars. However, we have found them to be generally reliable, and interestingly, the naturally aspirated (aka non-turbo, 5.0-liter V-8) is more unreliable and potentially heading to worse reliability with the addition of cylinder deactivation, which GM fans know all too well and loathe for excessive oil use.

The PowerBoost hybrid uses the 3.5-liter EcoBoost engine and we haven’t heard many complaints with this setup.

Finally, the 3.3-liter V-6 is a naturally aspirated engine and has been a stalwart of Ford’s commercial lineup, and we don’t find many complaints with it.

What we do find a lot of problems with is the 10-speed transmission. Looking at the numerous complaints as well as a class-action lawsuit, we see this transmission has been plagued with hard shifts. There does seem to be a remedy of having the transmission “reflashed,” which is to say to have the software reset since it is a “learning” transmission and will learn from your driving habits to improve itself. This learning portion of the transmission seems to be the biggest issue for many F-150 owners, since it doesn’t always work properly and having it reflashed can take weeks to months depending on the dealership backlog.

For reference, the 10-speed automatic transmission is the only transmission offered, though the PowerBoost has a slightly different 10-speed transmission due to it being a hybrid.

Another major issue has been the trailer brake software forgetting a trailer is attached. There are numerous complaints where a driver reports the trailer brake controller will stop working while towing. Owners have to pull over and reset the system by turning off the truck to get the trailer brake controller to recognize there is a trailer attached. This can lead to some nervous driving situations. Ford has issued a recall for this problem and says it affects 393,836 trucks.

Lastly, windshield wipers not working correctly has lead to a massive recall of not only the F-150 but also other Ford trucks and SUVs. There was an issue with the supplier-built part that lead to this recall of 652,996 vehicles.

Minor problems 2022 Ford F-150

Looking for the minor problems with the F-150, we have to filter quite a bit to find some random things like an air dam not deploying, a water leak causing mold to grow under the hood and into the cabin, power steering failing at times and a wide variety of other small issues.

This short list of minor known problems is impressive when you consider the volume of F-150 trucks Ford produces each year.

Let’s move on to what Consumer Reports thinks.

Consumer Reports view of 2022 Ford F-150

Looking at the predicted reliability chart, we see the 2022 Ford F-150 gets a score of 2 out of 5 for overall reliability, which is odd.

Why would it be odd? Digging deeper, the 2021 model saw improvements in reliability across the board with only paint/trim and in-car electronics still being an issue. Engine, transmission and everything else saw an improvement in reliability.

If this trends continues, we’d expect Consumer Reports to change its score to higher than a 2.

The bottom line

Looking at this list, it seems like the major issues are either being fixed or worked on. The minor issues are either lemons or just an odd-ball problem. Then, there is the predicted reliability from Consumer Reports that seems to be grading the truck heavily on these past major issues. We’d say as long as Ford is proactive about fixing the major issues and keeps working on improving its 10-speed transmission, the 2022 Ford F-150 should be a reliable truck — especially considering the sales volume factored into the number of problems by percentage.

What do you think? Did we miss any major issues?

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Tim Esterdahl

Automotive Journalist Tim Esterdahl has been a lover of trucks and SUVs for years. He has covered the industry since 2011 and has pieces in many national magazines and newspapers. In his spare time, he is often found tinkering on his '62 C10 pickup, playing golf, going hunting and hanging out with his wife and kids in Nebraska.

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1 Comment

  1. Kevin November 7, 2022

    Have a 1997 f150 ran great for years had it serviced regularly couldnt understand where the coolant was dossapearing to for years went to start it one day white smoke from tailpipe engine destroyed found out later defective head gasket manufactured w on assembly line at factory. Had to replace engine myself no recall at that time

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