Cruise control failure on the 2008 Ford Escape
Only 5 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When cruise control failure gets reported
There are 5 reports of cruise control failure on the 2008 Ford Escape, 5 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 43rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 78,584 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
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 2008 has 5. 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 had been traveling in a construction zone so I had my cruise control set somewhere near 35 or 40mph. The construction zone cleared up and I returned to normal speed but left the cruise control on. I accelerated on my own to about 70mph. A minute later the gas pedal left my foot and went to the floor accelerating the vehicle. Once at about 80mph the pedal let go and slapped the bottom of my foot (which was still in the position it was in at doing 70mph. The gas pedal (on it's own) moved to the floor and slapped my foot about 6 times before I turned off the cruise control. And again, the cruise control speed was set at about 40mph. *tr
I had been traveling in a construction zone so I had my cruise control set somewhere near 35 or 40mph. The construction zone cleared up and I returned to normal speed but left the cruise control on. I accelerated on my own to about 70mph. A minute later the gas pedal left my foot and went to the floor accelerating the vehicle. Once at about 80mph the pedal let go and slapped the bottom of my foot (which was still in the position it was in at doing 70mph. The gas pedal (on it's own) moved to the floor and slapped my foot about 6 times before I turned off the cruise control. And again, the cruise control speed was set at about 40mph. *tr
I was passing another vehicle - starting speed 40 MPH - when the escape went into passing gear the gas pedal stuck to the floor. I kicked at the pedal and the brake pedal trying to get the cruise control to release the pedal. I did not have the cruise control operating at the time as I had just went through a 45 MPH zone. I got my foot under the edge of the pedal and pulled it up. The car was up to 90 MPH on a two lane highway at 10:30 p.m coming into a curve. I have contacted ford motor company and they told me that there are no recalls for the 2008 escape, but I know there are recalls for other years for this same problem. The ford dealer repair shop could not make the pedal stick and told me there is nothing wrong with the car. I want to make ford and your agency aware that the 2008 escape has the same pedal sticking problem as the older models. *tr
Also reported on the 2008 Ford Escape
Other steering problem
Other powertrain problem
Steering column or shaft failure
Loss of power steering
Other speed control problem
Other engine problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 5 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 5 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 2008 Ford Escape?
Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is cruise control failure on the 2008 Ford Escape?
5 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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