AutoUtility currently tracks 19 official NHTSA owner defect complaints for the 2019 Lincoln MKZ. Engine & Cooling issues are the most frequently reported category, appearing in 6 complaints (31.6% of submitted records). Among these NHTSA complaint records, 2 filings cite a crash, 1 reports one or more injuries.

Key Problem Findings
  • Total NHTSA Complaints: 19 reports
  • #1 Reported Problem Area: Engine & Cooling (6 reports • 31.6% of submitted complaints)
  • Secondary Problem Areas: Steering System (3), Electrical System (3)
  • Crash-Citing Complaints: 2 filings
  • Fire-Citing Complaints: 0 filings
  • Complaints Reporting Injuries / Fatalities: 1 injury filings • 0 fatality filings
Reporting Methodology: Statistics describe unverified consumer submissions voluntarily filed with NHTSA. Complaint volume is not normalized for vehicle sales volume or miles driven. Multiple components can be cited within a single owner complaint submission.
Total Complaints
19
Submitted to NHTSA ODI
Crash-Citing Complaints
2
Filings citing a collision
Fire-Citing Complaints
0
Filings citing smoke or fire
Complaints Reporting Injuries
1
Filings citing one or more injuries
Complaints Reporting Fatalities
0
Consumer filings citing fatalities

Most Reported Problems for 2019 Lincoln MKZ

Top automotive subsystem defect categories ranked by unique owner complaint volume in federal records

#1 Problem Area 31.6% of complaints

Engine & Cooling

6 owner complaints submitted to NHTSA ODI
✓ 0 crashes or fires cited
#2 Problem Area 15.8% of complaints

Steering System

3 owner complaints submitted to NHTSA ODI
✓ 0 crashes or fires cited
#3 Problem Area 15.8% of complaints

Electrical System

3 owner complaints submitted to NHTSA ODI
⚠️ 1 crash report 🩹 1 injury report entry
#4 Problem Area 10.5% of complaints

Powertrain & Transmission

2 owner complaints submitted to NHTSA ODI
✓ 0 crashes or fires cited
#5 Problem Area 10.5% of complaints

Driver Assistance & Safety Tech

2 owner complaints submitted to NHTSA ODI
⚠️ NHTSA Recall Context

NHTSA records list 1 official safety recall campaign for this model year involving the same broad component area:

*Component overlap means an official recall exists for the same broad vehicle system. It does not establish that an individual owner complaint was caused by, covered by, or resolved through that recall.
⚠️ 2 crash reports
Domain Share Note: Share percentage represents the proportion of unique complaint filings referencing each vehicle system. Because single complaints may cite multiple systems (such as engine and electrical simultaneously), domain percentages represent individual category incidence and may sum to over 100%.

Symptoms Mentioned in NHTSA Owner Reports for 2019 Lincoln MKZ

Specific mechanical, electrical, and driver-assist defect symptoms identified via deterministic narrative analysis

AutoUtility uses deterministic phrase matching to identify recurring symptom descriptions within consumer-submitted NHTSA complaint narratives.

Engine & Cooling 26.3% of complaints

Engine Coolant Intrusion / Oil Leak

5 complaint narratives describe this symptom
Symptom Identification Method: A complaint may describe more than one symptom, so percentages may sum to more than 100%. Symptom identification reflects text contained in consumer-submitted complaint records and does not establish a confirmed mechanical diagnosis.

Recent NHTSA Owner Reports for 2019 Lincoln MKZ

Representative defect filings submitted by owners to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation

Engine & Cooling NHTSA ODI ID: #11758064
Filed: 08/19/2026

"On XXX, the engine in my 2019 Lincoln MKZ (Mileage 58,089) with the 2.0L EcoBoost engine suffered a catastrophic, sudden failure while driving. The vehicle began to overheat & run extremely rough, triggering multiple warning lights. It is now inoperable and unsafe to drive. The vehicle was towed to..."

Incident Date: 05/08/2026 • Raw NHTSA Component: ENGINE
Engine & Cooling NHTSA ODI ID: #11753851
Filed: 07/30/2026

"My engine has failed at less than 40,000 miles due to coolant leaking into the engine."

Incident Date: 07/20/2026 • Raw NHTSA Component: ENGINE
Other / Miscellaneous NHTSA ODI ID: #11749036
Filed: 07/08/2026

"The shifter cable bushing was broken. Car would not move out of Park. Same as Recall 22543 but this vehicle was not included. I have sent this before with the repair order from the dealership but the mileage was incorrect on that form by the service adviser. I am enclosing the corrected mileage..."

Incident Date: 06/28/2026 • Raw NHTSA Component: UNKNOWN OR OTHER
Other / Miscellaneous NHTSA ODI ID: #11748245
Filed: 07/03/2026

"The shifter cable bushing was broken and car was stuck on Park"

Incident Date: 06/28/2026 • Raw NHTSA Component: UNKNOWN OR OTHER
Engine & Cooling NHTSA ODI ID: #11731011
Filed: 04/14/2026

"Technical Service Bulletin 19-2387 My vehicle has this defect which is an ongoing problem and at the time of this correspondence my vehicle has under 13,000 miles. Seepage around the perimeter of the oil pan which in time will result in a steady leak and in turn loosing enough oil will cause engine..."

Incident Date: 11/11/2024 • Raw NHTSA Component: ENGINE
Consumer Narrative Notice: Excerpts are sanitized text descriptions submitted by vehicle owners to the federal ODI database. They reflect the reporting consumer's observations at the time of filing and have not been independently confirmed by vehicle manufacturers or government investigators.

Complaint History for Lincoln MKZ

Reported defect complaint volume across sibling model years (2015–2020)

Model Year NHTSA Complaints Crash Reports Safety Recalls Detailed Report
2015 Lincoln MKZ 80 4 11 View 2015 Problems →
2016 Lincoln MKZ 63 8 7 View 2016 Problems →
2017 Lincoln MKZ 135 6 4 View 2017 Problems →
2018 Lincoln MKZ 32 1 2 View 2018 Problems →
2019 Lincoln MKZ Current Page 19 2 1 Current
2020 Lincoln MKZ 3 0 1 View 2020 Problems →
Comparative Disclaimer: Complaint totals are unadjusted historical counts and are not normalized for vehicles sold, active fleet size, or total road mileage. Newer model years naturally have had less calendar exposure time to accumulate owner filings.

Detailed NHTSA Component Breakdown for 2019 Lincoln MKZ

Complete distribution of consumer defect reports across all 11 granular NHTSA system and subsystem classifications

Vehicle Component / System Total Complaints Crash Reports Fire Reports Reported Injury Entries Reported Fatality Entries
Engine NHTSA category: ENGINE 5 0 0 0 0
Steering NHTSA category: STEERING 3 0 0 0 0
Other / Uncategorized NHTSA category: UNKNOWN OR OTHER 3 0 0 0 0
Electrical System NHTSA category: ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 1 0 0 0 0
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 1 1 0 0 0
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,UNKNOWN OR OTHER 1 0 0 1 0
Forward Collision Avoidance NHTSA category: FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 1 1 0 0 0
Fuel & Propulsion System NHTSA category: FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM 1 0 0 0 0
Powertrain NHTSA category: POWER TRAIN 1 0 0 0 0
POWER TRAIN,ENGINE 1 0 0 0 0
Structure & Body NHTSA category: STRUCTURE 1 0 0 0 0
Data Attribution & Reporting Methodology: Complaints are unverified voluntary submissions to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI). Because multiple vehicle components can be cited within a single owner complaint submission, component-level rollups may sum to more than the unique complaint count (19). Injury and fatality entries in the detailed table reflect raw values entered by reporting consumers across individual submissions; they are not deduplicated casualty statistics and may include duplicate or unverified entries. Complaint volume is not normalized for sales volume or vehicle mileage and does not represent an audited component failure rate.

Official NHTSA Defect Investigations (1)

1 CLOSED

Formal safety defect inquiries and engineering analyses opened by the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI)

Official Federal Inquiries: NHTSA opens a defect investigation when safety screening or consumer defect trends indicate a potential unreasonable safety risk. An open investigation is a formal inquiry and does not by itself confirm a defect or result in a mandatory recall.
CLOSED Defect Petition (DP) ODI Action #DP22005
Opened: 2023-01-27 • Closed: 2023-08-07

Pedestrian alert sounds

Affected Component: ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:PROPULSION SYSTEM

NHTSA received a petition on or about July 18, 2022, requesting that Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 141 be applied to all electric and hybrid vehicles operating in the United States. The petition can be reviewed at NHTSA.gov under ODI Number 11486072. FMVSS 141 establishes performance requirements for pedestrian alert sounds for motor vehicles. The standard applies to hybrid and electric vehicles that have a gross vehicle weight ra...

✓ Resulted in Safety Recall Campaign: 22V063000 Official NHTSA File →
Official US Government Data Provenance

The complaint records on this page are retrieved directly from the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) public database.

Local Production Store Compiled: August 2026 • Deterministic Audited Dataset • Zero Dynamic External API Runtime Latency.