The Ford Mustang has had a long and eventful history. While the classic Mustangs from the ’60s might be the most famous ones, regular people can buy and drive a more modern Mustang if they want to. However, of those modern Ford Mustangs, the model year that’s had the most issues was the 2006 model year, and here’s why.

Water leaks into the 2006 Ford Mustang’s interior for some reason

Car Complaints said that the 2006 Mustang had the most complaints from owners of the car. One of the most common complaints had to do with the fact that water would leak into the interior for an unknown reason.

This issue started happening with about 65,000 miles on the odometer. This was also one of those issues that was just simply annoying, but for more reasons than one. 

Obviously, it’s not ideal for water to leak into the interior of your car. However, as many owners on Car Complaints said, they were also never quite sure why it was happening, and that just frustrated them.

Furthermore, they were also annoyed by the fact that Ford seemingly refuses to do anything about it. Some owners said that this may be because these kinds of water leaks aren’t seen as a safety issue, but still, some owners want Ford to issue a recall.

Despite that, Ford hasn’t issued a recall for this problem yet. And, since it’s not clear what’s causing it, it’s very difficult to get it fixed. Still, some have tried, and on average, owners paid about $950 to get this fix.

That said, other owners were so annoyed by this issue that they decided to stop buying Fords entirely. One owner even said, “It’s no wonder people are buying foreign cars.”

The paint bubbles on the Mustang

While many owners bought the Mustang because it looked cool, one very common issue with the 2006 Mustang made it look very ugly, according to Car Complaints. After about 50,000 miles, many owners reported that the paint on the hood of their 2006 Mustang began to bubble. For some owners, this corrosion made the paint chip off, too.

As one owner said, “It is very ugly and it’s a show car so it’s hard to hide.” Some owners chose to try to fix it, but it cost them a lot of money. On average, to fix this issue, Car Complaints said that owners paid about $970, while some owners got quotes that were in the $1,200 ballpark. 

Once again, other owners were annoyed by Ford’s inaction on this issue. As one owner said, “This problem has been going on for 10+ years, and Ford has not solved the problem.”

The 2006 Ford Mustang’s transmission failed, too

The 2006 Ford Mustang’s paint and water leakage issues may be annoying, but it also had issues that were more severe. In fact, Car Complaints said that the 2006 Mustang’s worst issue was the fact that its transmission would fail. On average, owners reported this issue happening when they had logged about 65,000 miles on their Mustangs. 

Many cars have transmission failures, and the 2006 Mustang wasn’t any different. Since the transmission is such an important part of the car, it also cost owners a lot of money to fix it. On average, Car Complaints said that owners paid about $2,100 to fix their Mustang’s transmission. Unsurprisingly, this type of failure was not only annoying, but it also turned many owners off from buying from Ford again.

As one owner said, not only are they never buying from Ford again, but they also wonder why anyone would. “Why should we pay 100% of their asking price to buy the vehicle, when they only deliver a car that will run 50,000-70,000 miles before a major failure?”