Other powertrain problem on the 2016 Ford Escape
4 crashes 4 injuries 8 of the 190 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 other powertrain problem gets reported
Owners of the 2016 Ford Escape report other powertrain problem at a median of 87,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 63,000 miles and a quarter after 101,000 miles, from 110 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 32,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 120,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 88,522 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.
11% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31,500 miles | 63,125 miles | 86,957 miles | 101,168 miles | 120,022 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, 4 a crash and 4 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 $400–$4,500 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 24 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2022, at a median of 25,000 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 125,000 miles.
By volume the 2010 carries the most reports, with 436; the 2016 has 190. 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.
Transmission started acting funny around 5 months after getting my escape. I would put it in reverse and it would jerk or not go into gear a few seconds. Then it started shuddering when I would drive it. At first maybe a few times a day. Yesterday it started shuddering and jerking all day. At one point I thought something had hit me or I had hit something as my car literally went forward and a loud clunk was heard from behind. Scared both me and my passenger as it felt like I had hit something. I am really scared to drive this thing because I never know when it will start jerking, shudder, etc. I had an se 2013 and had no trouble with the trans but it was not a titanium model, which I believe is the problem. I am afraid to pull out of our drive today when I leave for work as it is very busy and I don't know if it is going to stall, shudder, jerk, whatever. Ford needs to do a recall on their escapes at least the titanium models. They have all the computer stuff on those and although mine is not a top of the line titanium, it is still a titanium. I can't get this car in until next monday a full week away. The dealership (taylor…
We went on vacation in our new escape and the transmission started to slip surge and other things that came close to causing 2 accidents. Something should be done about ford being allowed to put out faulty transmissions for years. My transmission had to be rebuild with only being a few months old. Something should be done about this.
While driving the ford escape on a main road today the vehicle suddenly started to idle very rough, the orange wrench light came on and I could not accelerate. The car decelerated rapidly as I was going up a slight hill. I was able to coast into a parking lot, where I shut the car off for several minutes, then turned it back on and proceeded home. I have called the ford dealership to bring the car in for service. *tr
Also reported on the 2016 Ford Escape
Other engine problem
Complete transmission failure
Other steering problem
Other electrical problem
Backup camera failure
Other fuel system problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 190 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 powertrain problem happen on the 2016 Ford Escape?
Across 110 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 87,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 63,000 miles and a quarter after 101,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other powertrain problem on the 2016 Ford Escape?
190 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.9 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