2013 FORD ESCAPE — Complaint #1795202
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:ENGINE:OIL/LUBRICATION: OIL COOLER filed February 16, 2022
NHTSA complaint #1795202 (ODI reference 11452285) concerns a 2013 FORD ESCAPE and was filed on February 16, 2022. The owner reports the failure occurred on January 20, 2022. The vehicle had 158,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Arkansas based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine and engine cooling:engine:oil/lubrication: oil cooler, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: yes, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. A complaint that flags a crash, fire, or fatality is escalated on NHTSA's internal review queue and factors more heavily into any Preliminary Evaluation decision on this make and model. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same FORD ESCAPE cohort independently describe similar engine and engine cooling:engine:oil/lubrication: oil cooler failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2013 FORD ESCAPE shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2013 Ford Escape. The contact stated while driving at approximately 55 mph, there was smoke coming from underneath the hood and from behind the vehicle without warning. The contact stated that the failure progressively got worst and the smoke was gray. The contact said a third-party driver had stopped and advised that he saw flames. The contact opened the hood and saw the smoke. The fire department was not called and the contact did not have to put out any flames. The vehicle was towed to an independent mechanic who diagnosed that the engine head was cracked on the back side of the motor. The independent mechanic advised that there was a recall associated with the failure NHTSA Campaign Number: 13V583000 (Engine). The contact did not take the vehicle to a local dealer, however, the dealer was contacted and advised that there were no open recalls. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer had been informed of the failure and referred the contact to the NHTSA Hotl
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1795202 |
| ODI Number | 11452285 |
| Date Filed | February 16, 2022 |
| Failure Date | January 20, 2022 |
| VIN | 1FMCU0GX4DU |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.