2018 FORD ESCAPE — Complaint #2178597
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE filed February 19, 2026
NHTSA complaint #2178597 (ODI reference 11719153) concerns a 2018 FORD ESCAPE and was filed on February 19, 2026. The owner reports the failure occurred on January 5, 2026. The report was geocoded to Kansas based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine, 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 engine 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 2018 FORD ESCAPE shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
While driving 1,100 miles from Topeka, Kansas to Maryland to spend time with our first grandchild, our trip was interrupted by coolant intrusion in the cylinders of our 2018 Ford Escape SE (ecoboost), which had 78,600 miles on it. Both an independent garage and the Ford dealership in Maryland said the car needed a new engine. The garage put the cost at $16,000; the Ford dealer, $12,200. I quickly discovered online that the problem of coolant intrusion in Ford Escapes from that year was widespread and caused by a design flaw. After purchasing the vehicle used in 2020, I was never informed of any recalls or service announcements about this problem and after the problem was diagnosed, I was told by Ford that recalls had all expired by now. Instead of spending $12,200 for a new engine from an out-of-state dealership I had no knowledge of or past service history with, I decided to use the money I would have spent in repairs and instead use it toward purchasing a used car that hopefully h
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2178597 |
| ODI Number | 11719153 |
| Date Filed | February 19, 2026 |
| Failure Date | January 5, 2026 |
| VIN | 1FMCU0GD7JU |
Similar ENGINE Complaints for 2018 FORD ESCAPE
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I had three incidents in January of 2026 where the coolant was leaking and then the check engine light would come on. I took it to the Ford dealership to have it checked and they said I need a new eng
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.