2001 FORD ESCAPE — Complaint #542549
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:CLUTCH ASSEMBLY:PEDAL/HAND LEVER(MOTORCYCLE) filed July 5, 2005
NHTSA complaint #542549 (ODI reference 10127433) concerns a 2001 FORD ESCAPE and was filed on July 5, 2005. The owner reports the failure occurred on July 1, 2005. The vehicle had 61,500 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Pennsylvania based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:clutch assembly:pedal/hand lever(motorcycle), 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. No VIN was supplied by the filer, so this complaint contributes to model-year trend data but cannot be tied to a specific vehicle.
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 power train:clutch assembly:pedal/hand lever(motorcycle) 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 2001 FORD ESCAPE shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
2001 FORD ESCAPE, 61,000 MILES, CLUTCH FAILURE, CLUTCH PEDAL WENT TO FLOOR, WOULD NOT DISENGAGE. WAS ON ENTRANCE RAMP TO INTERSTATE HIGHWAY, IN SLOW MOVING TRAFFIC, OTHERWISE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. INVESTIGATED ON INTERNET AND FOUND THAT THIS PROBLEM IS DESCRIBED IN FORD TECHNICAL SERVICE BULLETIN 1-24-1, SO IS OBVIOUSLY A KNOWN ISSUE. ONE OF RELATIVELY FEW TSBS THAT COULD CAUSE A CATASTROPHIC ACCIDENT IF IT OCCURRED AT SPEED. MOST OF THE TSBS ARE FOR THINGS LIKE "WHINING/BUZZING IN AUDIO SYSTEM," "ENGINE OIL RECOMMENDATIONS/APPLICATIONS," "INTAKE MANIFOLD GASKETS--FUEL SMELL TO THE INTERIOR." WHILE SOME OF THESE MAY BE SIGNIFICANT, FEW OF THEM WOULD CAUSE A CATASTROPHIC PROBLEM IF THEY OCCURED AT SPEED. THE "GENERAL RECALL" AND "SAFETY RECALLS" CATEGORIES, WHICH INCLUDE THINGS LIKE "SPEED CONTROL CABLE DEFECT" AND "REAR DRIVESHAFT REPLACEMENT DIFFERENTIAL LEAK" SEEM TO ME MUCH MORE APPROPRIATE PLACES FOR THIS SERIOUS PROBLEM TO BE REPORTED. HAD VEHICLE TOWED TO FORD DEALER. CON
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 542549 |
| ODI Number | 10127433 |
| Date Filed | July 5, 2005 |
| Failure Date | July 1, 2005 |
Similar POWER TRAIN:CLUTCH ASSEMBLY:PEDAL/HAND LEVER(MOTORCYCLE) Complaints for 2001 FORD ESCAPE
TL* THE CONTACT OWNS A 2001 FORD ESCAPE. WHILE DRIVING DIFFERENT SPEEDS, THE ACCELERATOR PEDAL BECAME STUCK. THE CONTACT PLACED THE VEHICLE IN NEUTRAL AND DEPRESSED THE BRAKE PEDAL, WHICH CAUSED THE V
CABLE CAME OFF CLUTCH PEDAL UNDER THE DASH. PEDAL WENT COMPLETELY TO FLOOR AND WAS UNABLE TO SHIFT CARE. CABLE WAS REPLACED BY VEHICLE OWNER, BUT FAILED TO STAY ON 2 MORE TIMES.
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.