2021 FORD ESCAPE HYBRID — Complaint #2060012
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SEAT BELTS: REAR/OTHER:BUCKLE ASSEMBLY filed January 27, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2060012 (ODI reference 11638842) concerns a 2021 FORD ESCAPE HYBRID and was filed on January 27, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on January 1, 2025. The vehicle had 80,500 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to New Mexico based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as seat belts: rear/other:buckle assembly, 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 HYBRID cohort independently describe similar seat belts: rear/other:buckle assembly 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 2021 FORD ESCAPE HYBRID shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2021 Ford Escape. The contact stated while driving 65 MPH and at various speeds, the cruise control and several other features failed to activate. The contact stated that the air bag indicator and a message that the rear seat monitor default warning light were illuminated. The vehicle was then taken to a dealer where it was diagnosed and determined to replace the driver's side seat belt buckle. The vehicle was not repaired because the dealer was waiting for the part to be received. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 80,500.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2060012 |
| ODI Number | 11638842 |
| Date Filed | January 27, 2025 |
| Failure Date | January 1, 2025 |
| VIN | 1FMCU0DZ6MU |
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.