Other engine problem on the 1999 Ford Escort
2 crashes 1 injury 3 of the 48 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 engine problem gets reported
Owners of the 1999 Ford Escort report other engine problem at a median of 45,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles, from 11 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 100,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 91,700 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.
36% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8,300 miles | 23,600 miles | 43,000 miles | 66,723 miles | 100,000 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 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 $300–$4,000 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 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2002, at a median of 25,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 80,000 miles.
By volume the 1999 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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.
Since the purchase of my car at 12,000 miles, it has shaken and vibrated violently. When I run my defrost or A/C the problem gets worse and my car stalls out. I have replaced the transmission at 30,000 miles and replaced everything the dealership instructed. On july, 18, 2003 I made my final attempt to correct the problem. I took the car to the ford dealer and again specified the problem and showed them exactly what I was experiencing. I picked it up later that afternoon they had replaced the valve again that I had just replaced in january 2003. I turned on my car and ran the A/C and I saw no improvement. So I asked to speak with a manager who told me that this is a common problem that my car shouldn't stall anymore but they have done everything they can do to correct this problem. Basically, we purchased a $13,000 dollar car that never ran right and can not be remedied. No one has a solution and I'm expected to be satisfied with a car that shakes non-stop. If ford knows this is occuring they need to notify customers before they purchase the vehicle, instead of letting them drive away in a car that can never be fixed. I have lost…
While driving at any speed consumer felt vibration throughout the vehicle. Consumer took vehicle to a mechanic, who informed the consumer that motor and transmission mounts needed replacement. Dealer was aware of the problem, but the manufacturer was not.*ak
1999 ford escort, 5 speed manual transmission, station wagon: oil leaked through the camshaft bolts into the manual clutch assembly, causing it to gum up and eventually fail to disengage the transmission. Symptoms included the car lurching forward when starting the engine with the clutch fully depressed, and a thumping sound when the clutch was depressed while driving. The clutch was replaced at owner's expense by kayser ford in madison wi; unclear what was done with the old parts.*jb
Also reported on the 1999 Ford Escort
Other suspension problem
Other electrical problem
Other body or interior problem
Other powertrain problem
Airbag failed to deploy in a crash
Seat belt or retractor failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 48 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 engine problem happen on the 1999 Ford Escort?
Across 11 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other engine problem on the 1999 Ford Escort?
48 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 453 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