Cruise control failure on the 2004 Ford Escape
5 crashes 1 fire 1 injury 7 of the 28 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 2004 Ford Escape report cruise control failure at a median of 107,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 77,500 miles and a quarter after 135,000 miles, from 27 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 8th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 40,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 197,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 159,343 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 39,000 miles | 76,636 miles | 108,001 miles | 134,180 miles | 198,343 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, 5 a crash, 1 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 2004 has 28. 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.
While driving down a hill with cruise control on, vehicle picked up speed. Dealership was notified, but did not resolve the problem. *ak the cruise control has failed everytime it' s been used. *nm
Went to pass another vehicle while cruise control was on our accelorator stuck and we continued to pick up speed. Unable to stop car. Brakes would not work. Able to stop vehicle by eventually slowing enough to throw into park. It took approximately 1 mile to come to a complete stop. Car was towed to dealer. Dealer indicated cruise control cable needed to be replaced. Could not provide reason for cable failure. Vehicle has 33000 miles.*ak
Dt*: the contact stated while driving on a highway at 70 MPH the cruise control would not deactivate. Depressing the brake pedal did not slow the vehicle or turning off the cruise control. To stop the vehicle, it was placed in neutral and pulled to the side of the road. The vehicle was driven to the service dealer where they determined the cables were defective. The cruise control cable was disconnected until the ordered parts are received by the dealer.
Also reported on the 2004 Ford Escape
Other suspension problem
Other body or interior problem
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Other speed control problem
Strut, shock or spring failure
Rust or structural corrosion
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 28 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 2004 Ford Escape?
Across 27 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 107,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 77,500 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 2004 Ford Escape?
28 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