AtWhatMileage
Brakes · 17 owner reports

Other brake problem on the 2014 Ford Escape

2 crashes 1 fire 2 injuries 5 of the 17 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.

Reports of this failure 17
With an odometer reading 11
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 45%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 5
Typical repair $300–$1,800
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 30th

When other brake problem gets reported

Owners of the 2014 Ford Escape report other brake problem at a median of 40,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 60,000 miles, from 11 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 30th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 85,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 75,751 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.

45% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 11 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
11,249 miles 24,550 miles 38,000 miles 60,500 miles 87,000 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, 1 a fire and 2 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 $300–$1,800 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 22 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2021, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 122,500 miles.

By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 63; the 2014 has 17. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Tl* the contact owns a 2014 ford escape. The contact stated while driving 45 MPH the vehicle would make a grinding noise whenever the brakes were engaged. The contact stated that when the engine warm the noise would stop. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where the technician stated that the vehicle was functioning as designed. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was 200. The current mileage was 6,352.

200 miles NHTSA complaint 1068301 filed 2014-05-23

A warning message came on saying that the brake fluid was low, and that I needed to take the car to a dealer. I drove home, a short distance, and decided to check the fluid myself. When I opened the hood I found the brake fluid reservoir sitting on top of the engine tipped down so that fluid was not available to the brake lines. There was some fluid left but most had been lost. The warning came on within a few 100 yards of my home, if I had been on a trip or at highway speeds this could have been very bad. The car will go to a dealership tomorrow. *js

11,249 miles NHTSA complaint 1083287 filed 2014-07-06

After only 22,000 miles, I had to pay for new pads and rotors on the rear brakes. The dealer repaired the brakes but refused to cover the cost under a warranty claim. The service ticket blamed the failure on a "found left rear inside pad metal to metal, found slide rusted up"!

22,100 miles NHTSA complaint 1243242 filed 2015-12-05

Also reported on the 2014 Ford Escape

Other engine problem

394 reports median 71k

Other powertrain problem

256 reports median 90k

Overheating

177 reports median 86k

Radiator or coolant leak

120 reports median 90k

Other body or interior problem

119 reports median 52k

Other electrical problem

100 reports median 53k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 17 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 other brake problem happen on the 2014 Ford Escape?

Across 11 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 40,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 60,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other brake problem on the 2014 Ford Escape?

17 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