Cruise control failure on the 2001 Ford Escape
2 crashes 2 fires 1 injury 5 of the 24 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When cruise control failure gets reported
Owners of the 2001 Ford Escape report cruise control failure at a median of 75,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 115,000 miles, from 15 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 18th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 50,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 125,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 76,686 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
7% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 49,186 miles | 70,264 miles | 76,000 miles | 115,000 miles | 125,872 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 2 a crash, 2 a fire and 1 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $200–$1,400 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 20 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2019, at a median of 500 miles, and latest on the 2003 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2020 carries the most reports, with 59; the 2001 has 24. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
I was driving on the highway today. Went to use the cruise control, and the light came on. Cruise control was not engaged. I was almost rear-ended. Was set at 65 MPH, speedometer showed rapid deceleration even though cruise was supposed to be engaged. Had to disengage and manually control speed. Found 5 other posts on yahoo internet site for escape owners. Same problem. Light on, no cruise. *jb
In may 2005 the accelerator cable stuck wide open on my 2001 ford escape (v-6 engine automatic transmission) this happened in my driveway when I punched down on the pedal very hard. There is a plastic cover on top of the engine that must be removed in order to see where the cables hook up to the throttle body. I removed this to determine if it was the throttle body or the cable that was stuck. As I was taking it off the cable became unstuck on it's own so I was unable to determine the problem. At that point I took it to the dealer and they said they were unable to duplicate the problem so they did nothing. On 8/10/05 my wife pushed down hard on the gas pedal while merging into freeway traffic. The accelerator stuck wide open again and she found herself going about 100 MPH down the highway. Finally she put the car in neutral, shut off the engine, coasted to the berm and called a tow truck. Since the dealer couldn't fix the problem the first time I decided to look at it again myself. Again I took the plastic cover off the top of the engine and once again the cable became unstuck. This made me suspect that the plastic cover may have…
Approaching hiway construction with flagman and about 10 cars stopped, when I hit the brake, cruise control failed to disengage, throttle stuck wide-open. I tried to turn it off with on/off button on steering wheel but no result,approaching stopped line of cars at full throttle, towing camping trailer. Finally, I shifted into neutral and was able to stop the car/trailer, engine racing max revs and making strange noise, faltering as it might when the fuel mixture was too rich. I then turned the engine off, and upon inspection under the hood and locating what we thought was the cruise control, we jiggled a cable going into it and heard a clunk within. I then started the car and it ran normally. Continued trip, just didn't use cruise control !! Upon returning from trip, I called my ford dealer in durango, co and was told to call customer relations. I did so twice, and was told there was no recall on my car. I then searched the NHTSA website, and found there was a recall on 2001 escape for this very problem (safety recall 00s18, NHTSA campaign id# 00v210001), but my car's VIN was not included! I submit that this incident illustrates…
Also reported on the 2001 Ford Escape
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
Other speed control problem
ABS module or sensor failure
Other powertrain problem
Other body or interior problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 24 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does cruise control failure happen on the 2001 Ford Escape?
Across 15 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 75,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 115,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is cruise control failure on the 2001 Ford Escape?
24 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed