all vehicles · every Escape year · method

Ford Escape 2017

Safety complaints filed by owners in the first three years, per 1,000 sold.

0.72 per 1,000

1.0 times this nameplate’s own median · from 221 complaints filed in the first three years, of 2694 ever. 95% lower bound 0.62.

Against its own model years

The model year carries far more information than the badge, so this is the comparison that matters.

Model year	Per 1,000	Complaints
2008	1.44	226
2009	0.55	90
2010	0.92	167
2011	2.03	451
2012	0.48	123
2013	1.40	389
2014	0.64	192
2015	0.34	104
2016	0.46	141
2017	0.72	221
2018	0.38	110
2019	0.28	71
2020	0.93	196
2021	1.17	189
2022	1.43	202
2023	0.62	86

What owners describe

Phrases over-represented in these complaints compared with the same component on every other vehicle. Counts are complaints containing the phrase.

Engine 1579 complaints

coolant	1123	71%
intrusion	424	27%
coolant intrusion	404	26%
coolant leaking	270	17%
cylinders	264	17%
ecoboost	210	13%

Engine And Engine Cooling 509 complaints

mileage	484	95%
coolant	455	89%
repaired	448	88%
coolant intrusion	268	52%
intrusion	268	52%
diagnosed coolant	171	34%

Power Train 391 complaints

coolant	99	25%
intrusion	40	10%
coolant intrusion	37	9%
block	31	8%
undisclosed speed	30	8%
ecoboost	29	7%

When it breaks

16% of reported failures happened before 30,000 miles (median 70,000 miles, from 1158 complaints that recorded one).

Failures arrive late and spread out, which looks like wear. Service history matters more than model year here.

What NHTSA did

No NHTSA investigation covers this model year.

That is not a clean bill of health, and not a criticism of the agency: investigations open for many reasons and complaint volume is only one of them.

What owners and forums say

Not built yet. This panel is meant to carry community sentiment beside the filed-complaint data, so the two can be compared. Showing something weaker here would defeat its purpose.

Check this yourself

Example records behind this page:

10915140 · 10916044 · 10940210 · 10946165 · 10946563 · 10956896

Limits of this figure. It counts safety complaints filed with the federal government, which is a floor on failures and not a census: problems that only cost money are under-reported. Complaint rates also reflect how likely a brand’s owners are to file, which cannot be separated from how often the car fails. Sales are calendar-year and the denominator for this nameplate is automated checks only, not verified against an external source.