2020 Ford Escape
This year drew an ordinary 1,792 complaints for a Ford Escape — the model's median is 1,077. What they were about is the unusual part: 46.8% of them mention door, against 7% across the other years of this generation.
First year of a new generation. The Ford Escape was redesigned for 2020. A first year carries problems nobody has found yet, and they are found by the people who buy it — which is worth knowing before you become one of them.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 1,792 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 1,077 |
| Involving a crash | 21 |
| Involving a fire | 5 |
| Recalls | 23 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 30 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- door — 46.8% of this year's complaints, against 7% across the other years of this generation (6.6×).
- window — 23.3% of this year's complaints, against 3.4% across the other years of this generation (6.9×). Owners wrote it as: window, roll, roll down, side window.
- opening — 16.6% of this year's complaints, against 1.7% across the other years of this generation (10×). Owners wrote it as: opening, closing, door makes.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
while getting into the vehicle she heard a loud noise when opening and closing the driver's side door. The contact stated that the driver's side door failed to open as needed and the driver's side window failed to roll down as needed. There was no warning ligh…
there were three holes in the front driver’s side door. The contact stated that while opening and closing the front driver’s side door, she heard abnormal clunking and popping sound. The contact stated that her son used WD-40 to lubricate the hinge and noticed…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 19V633000 SEATS Fixed free of charge.
- 20V415000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 20V635000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 20V550000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 20V575000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
- 21V011000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
- 22V191000 ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING Fixed free of charge.
- 22V331000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
Showing 8 of 23. The rest are on NHTSA's site.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Ford Escape was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2020 Ford Escape? What happened to yours?
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