2020 FORD ESCAPE — Complaint #1984811
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL:SOFTWARE filed April 19, 2024
NHTSA complaint #1984811 (ODI reference 11583989) concerns a 2020 FORD ESCAPE and was filed on April 19, 2024. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 18, 2021. The vehicle had 46,358 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to District of Columbia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as forward collision avoidance: adaptive cruise control:software, 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: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. 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 forward collision avoidance: adaptive cruise control:software 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 2020 FORD ESCAPE shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2020 Ford Escape. The contact stated while driving approximately 30 MPH with the driver assist cruise control activated, the vehicle was slowing down for traffic ahead. The contact stated that the driver assists automatically engaged the brakes but as the vehicle neared the rear end of the vehicle ahead the vehicle independently accelerated. The contact manually depressed the brake pedal which disengaged the driver assist cruise control function. The contact stated that the failure was a recurring failure. The contact stated no warning light was illuminated. The contact had taken the vehicle to a local dealer, where it was diagnosed and determined that sensors for the driver assist function needed to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired. The contact stated that the failure of the driver assists function reoccurred. Additionally, the contact stated that her Forward Collision Avoidance feature was intermittently being activated without another vehicle nearby. The cont
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1984811 |
| ODI Number | 11583989 |
| Date Filed | April 19, 2024 |
| Failure Date | June 18, 2021 |
| VIN | 1FMCU9J9XLU |
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.