Cruise control failure on the 2002 Ford Escape
2 crashes 6 fires 1 death 9 of the 26 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 2002 Ford Escape report cruise control failure at a median of 65,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 135,000 miles, from 22 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 14th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 50,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 145,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 92,206 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.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 51,826 miles | 62,000 miles | 63,056 miles | 133,000 miles | 144,032 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, 6 a fire and 1 a fatality 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 2002 has 26. 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.
In watching the news about ford SUV's catching on fire, one of the warning signs was a brake light going out or the cruise control light on the dash. I have a 2002 escape, and recently have replaced two brake lights going out. I only have 40000 miles, yet I did not see a recall on this car concerning this. Has this happened to any escapes model year 2002 ??
7/5/2005. I was in baltimore, md in my 2002 ford escape. Trafic was moderately heavy. I started to change lanes and noticed a car in the lane so I pulled back into my lane at which point, the throttle on my vehicle stuck open. The engine was racing and attempts to brake were useless. I threw the moving vehicle into park where it continued to move. I then tried to shift to neutral in hoipes of regaining braking, but I hit reverse first, at which point my car rapidly reversed into another vehicle. Damage to the vehicles was limited as I hit a 3500 chevy silverado truck, however, it was one of the most unnerving experiences I have ever had. The police were called as the other vehicle belongs to the city of baltimore department of public works. No traffic report was written by the police officer, however, the baltimore city employee (darell powers) did fill out an accident report for the city. My vehicle was towed to carmax in white marsh md, where they told me the cause was the cruise control cable had frayed, causing it to butterfly and hold open the throttle. The escape has 53,002 miles on it, and cruise control is rarely used. I…
Defective cruise control cable will lock throttle in full open position when the gas pedal is fully depressed. Polymer sleeve on cruise actuator cable has broken at the throttle connector. This allows the connector to rotate to a vertical position and catch on the engine cover when the foot pedal is pressed to the floor. *jb
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
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 26 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 2002 Ford Escape?
Across 22 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 65,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 135,000 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 2002 Ford Escape?
26 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