Other engine problem on the 2000 Ford Focus
10 crashes 29 fires 5 injuries 1 death 45 of the 327 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 2000 Ford Focus report other engine problem at a median of 59,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 41,000 miles and a quarter after 87,000 miles, from 126 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 27,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 117,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 90,159 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.
14% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26,922 miles | 40,990 miles | 59,225 miles | 86,625 miles | 117,081 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, 10 a crash, 29 a fire, 5 an injury and 1 a fatality 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 19 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2006, at a median of 15,000 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 75,000 miles.
By volume the 2000 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.
While driving the vehicle at any speed, strong chemical fumes spread through out the vehicle. The dealer has been made aware of the problem. Nlm the tire rod has loosened, the battery had blown, and the engine light had stayed illuminated. Scc
My 2000 ford focus stalled on three seperate occassions. Two times occuring on 2/13/03. I had the car towed to dealership service dept. They told me it was fixed that day. Same exact problem occured next dayon way to work.(only drove car home from dealership day before) drove straight to dealership and told same problem occured.(7am in morning) they called at 5:30pm to tell me they could not duplicate problem and wanted to keep car over weekend. On monday they told me they could not duplicate the problem, had test drove it 83 miles, and returned vehicle with no repair made.(other than upcoming recall I hadn't been notified of yet)
While accelerating on highway, engine and oil light came on; engine began making knocking noise. Pulled car over. Ford dealership stated engine failure due to inproper maintenance. Oil changed according to maintenance schedule -- do not have evidence because it was done by husband. Vehicle only has 60k miles.
Also reported on the 2000 Ford Focus
Other electrical problem
Ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure
Fuel pump failure
Other body or interior problem
Other brake problem
Wheel bearing or hub failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 327 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 2000 Ford Focus?
Across 126 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 59,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 41,000 miles and a quarter after 87,000 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 2000 Ford Focus?
327 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.0 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