2020 FORD ESCAPE — Complaint #2010996
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about VISIBILITY:DEFROSTER/DEFOGGER/HVAC SYSTEM:COMPRESSOR filed July 26, 2024
NHTSA complaint #2010996 (ODI reference 11604787) concerns a 2020 FORD ESCAPE and was filed on July 26, 2024. The owner reports the failure occurred on May 15, 2024. The vehicle had 31,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to California based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as visibility:defroster/defogger/hvac system:compressor, 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 visibility:defroster/defogger/hvac system:compressor 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 that while the vehicle parked, the contact was unable to start the vehicle. The vehicle was restarted after an hour. On another occasion, while turning left, the vehicle lost motive power. The vehicle was turned off and restarted. The vehicle was taken to a dealer where it was diagnosed that the battery needed to be replaced and codes for the PCM, and headlamp were retrieved. The vehicle was repaired. The vehicle was taken to a dealer where it was diagnosed that the A/C compressor needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 31,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2010996 |
| ODI Number | 11604787 |
| Date Filed | July 26, 2024 |
| Failure Date | May 15, 2024 |
| VIN | 1FMCU9H65LU |
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.