Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure on the 2002 Ford Escape
2 crashes 4 fires 5 injuries 11 of the 63 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 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure gets reported
Owners of the 2002 Ford Escape report control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure at a median of 47,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 30,000 miles and a quarter after 102,500 miles, from 33 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 27 miles at the tenth percentile to 147,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 146,573 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
36% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 miles | 29,199 miles | 47,000 miles | 103,000 miles | 146,600 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, 4 a fire and 5 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 $700–$3,000 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 2018, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2008 at 135,000 miles.
By volume the 2005 carries the most reports, with 117; the 2002 has 63. 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.
2002 ford escape stalled while in motion for the second time. It stalled in feb. 2002 and a ford tsb to update the PCM was performed to fix the problem in june of the same year. Everything was fine until the other day when it stalled while coasting after a brief period of acceleration to enter a highway on-ramp. I could control the vehicle with a little extra effort and it did re-start right away. *jb
My wife was coasting (traveling downhill) in our 2002 ford escape xlt (2 wheel drive) when the engine suddenly stopped. The effect was as if the key had been turned off. She lost all power (steering, brakes, etc) and coasted into a sidewalk. It could have been much worse. Taking the proper precautions, she had the car towed to the nearest dealership (hayward ford - very helpful, performed the tsb work right away), where they told her of a tsb that described the appropriate steps for the mechanics to take. The supposed tsb included replacement of the following items: throttle body assembly, air charge body, mass air flow sensor, air charge sensor gasket, power relay for PCM, EGR sensor, and the purge regulation valve for vapor system. I searched the NHTSA tsb site for the bulletin and couldn't find it. The number we were given was tsb 02-23-01. I noticed that an investigation into the cause of this problem by the NHTSA was closed and reopened in sep 2002. From what I have read here at the NHTSA site, I think it's time for ford to warn their escape owners of this problem before someone is injured.*ak
Intermittent problem. Vehicle will start but will not idle. Will stall unless gas is applied at all times. Will stall if decelerating. First time problem occurred, power relay search was addressed. Then PCM recall was applied, and problem happened again. Now dealer says air bypass valve needs to be replaced. Car has 42,000 miles on it. *la
Also reported on the 2002 Ford Escape
Other engine problem
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
ABS module or sensor failure
Other speed control problem
Other electrical problem
Stalling while driving
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 63 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 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure happen on the 2002 Ford Escape?
Across 33 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 47,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 30,000 miles and a quarter after 102,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure on the 2002 Ford Escape?
63 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 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