Model years › Ford Escape

2017 Ford Escape

This year drew an ordinary 2,652 complaints for a Ford Escape — the model's median is 1,077. What they were about is the unusual part: 26.4% of them mention intrusion, against 4.6% across the other years of this generation.

Generation 3 of the Ford Escape, which began in 2013 and ran to 2019. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.

NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.

What the complaints were about

• intrusion — 26.4% of this year's complaints, against 4.6% across the other years of this generation (5.8×). Owners wrote it as: intrusion, coolant intrusion, intrusion engine, 21n12.
• check engine — 32.2% of this year's complaints, against 9.8% across the other years of this generation (3.3×). Owners wrote it as: check engine, stated check, speed check, vehicle check.
• cylinder — 24.1% of this year's complaints, against 5.8% across the other years of this generation (4.1×). Owners wrote it as: cylinder, cylinder misfire, leaking cylinder, misfire cylinder.

Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.

What owners wrote

while driving at an undisclosed speed, the check engine warning light illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, who determined that there was coolant intrusion into several cylinders, resulting in engine damage. The contact was informed that the engine…

while his wife was driving at an undisclosed speed, the check engine warning light illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, who determined that coolant intrusion into cylinder #3 had caused damages to the engine. The contact was informed that the engi…

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.

Recalls for this year

• 16V617000 VISIBILITY Fixed free of charge.
• 22V413000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
• 26V011000 EQUIPMENT Fixed free of charge.
• 26V374000 VISIBILITY Fixed free of charge.

Own a 2017 Ford Escape? What happened to yours?

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How this was worked out

Every year of the Ford Escape was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.

This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.

Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.

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