2016 Ford Escape3rd gen (2013–2019), last year before the facelift

Updated 2026-08-29NHTSA counts read on this date — 1096 complaints. They rise over time.

2016 Ford Escape: Four Recalls, While Transmission Complaints Skew Toward the 1.6L

Four recall campaigns is the fewest of any third-generation Escape. The 2013 has eighteen. That is the good news on this car, and it sets up the question the rest of this page is about: what happens when the largest thing in the complaint record has no campaign against it.

Owners have filed 1,096 complaints with NHTSA about the 2016 model year. Ford sold 306,492 Escapes in calendar 2015 and 307,069 in 2016, and the 2016 model year sold across both, so the denominator is in the hundreds of thousands. That is not a rate — 1,096 filings are not 1,096 owners — and the count earns its keep only because the other years in this series are counted the same way.

The basics

Last year of the pre-facelift third-generation Escape. Three four-cylinders, all with the same six-speed automatic: a 2.5-liter in front-wheel drive only, and EcoBoost turbos at 1.6 and 2.0 liters. The 2017 facelift replaced the 1.6 with a 1.5 and changed the engine story completely, so this is the end of one era in the complaint record.

Specs

Horsepower is from NHTSA’s vPIC catalog, which holds what the manufacturer submitted. Fuel economy is EPA. Towing is unchanged from the 2015 — 1,500 lbs on the 2.5L, 2,000 on the 1.6L, 3,500 on the 2.0L with the Class II package.

NHTSA rated it four stars overall — four frontal, five side, four rollover, on both drivetrains.

What owners filed

Sections below are sorted by count and each complaint is counted once. They add up to 826. The remaining 270 are spread thin — NHTSA tagged 52 of them engine, 39 electrical, and 29 wheels.

Engine identification comes from decoding the VIN attached to each filing. 1,061 of the 1,096 decode: 1.6L 53.9 percent, 2.0L 33.1, 2.5L 13.0. The sections below are read against those shares.

This is not a failure rate by engine. The shares below are shares of the complaint record, not of the cars Ford built — the complaint record does not contain that. An engine that draws more complaints of every kind would move both numbers together.

Transmission and shifter — 321

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged power train, plus those that name the transmission, the shifter, or the shift cable.

The largest section, and it splits cleanly in two.

53 filings name the shifter, the shift cable, or the bushing. That is the part Ford recalled — 22V413000, from June 2022, covers 2013–2019 Escapes for a bushing that “may degrade or detach.” Those 53 are 51 percent 1.6L, against 54 percent of the whole record. Inside the complaint data that subgroup shows no meaningful engine skew.

268 describe how the transmission behaves rather than a specific part. Those are 80 percent 1.6L, against 54 percent of the record. 74 of them describe a transmission being replaced or rebuilt. 43 use the words jerk, lurch, shudder or jolt. 26 say it slips.

Why the 1.6L cars are over-represented here is not something the complaint record can settle. It records what owners wrote and which car they wrote it about, and nothing about how many of each were built or how they were driven.

From ODI 11725309:

“Transmission went out at 101k miles - transmission needed to be rebuilt which I had done at a large cost. There was no warning, the trans went out while driving. Purge valve for gas (EVAP) also went out without any warning and when I would put gas in the car, the car would not start.”

Transmission filings on this car peaked in 2022 at 88, which is the year the bushing recall landed.

Backup camera — 240

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged back-over prevention, plus those that name the backup, rear or reverse camera.

The largest camera section of any Escape in this series, and almost all of it arrived in the last two years. Camera filings ran in the single digits through 2022. In 2025 there were 47. In 2026 so far there are 155.

Ford filed recall 25V695000 in October 2025, covering the 2015–2016 Escape among a long list of other vehicles, for a rearview camera that “may display a distorted, intermittent, or blank image when the vehicle is in reverse.” The remedy text says VINs “became searchable on NHTSA.gov on October 14, 2025” and that interim letters “notifying owners of the safety risk were mailed on October 25, 2025.” The campaign is phased — the fix arrives by model and model year.

133 of these 240 name 25V695000 by number. 44 say the part was not available when they went in.

Some of those filings are not about a broken camera at all. ODI 11757948 ends:

“The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was not made aware of the issue. The contact had not experienced a failure.”

That is a complaint about waiting, filed into a database that counts complaints. It is worth knowing that those are in here before reading anything into the size of this section.

Coolant and overheating — 127

Counted as filings that name the coolant, the engine overheating, or a head gasket.

124 decode and 53 of those are the 1.6L — 43 percent, below the 54 percent baseline. On the 2013 car the same section runs 95 percent 1.6L. Whatever was happening to 1.6L engines in 2013 and 2014 is not what this section is about.

None of the 1.6L engine campaigns — 12V431000, 12V551000, 13V583000, 17V209000 — cover the 2016.

Stalling — 65

Counted as filings that say the car stalled.

Power steering — 44

Counted as filings that name the power steering or the steering assist.

Same size as the 2015 car’s section, and NHTSA has no recall against the 2016 Escape for the electric steering assist either.

Brakes — 16

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged service brakes.

Fires — 10

NHTSA’s own flag on the filing, not a word count.

Ten, on a car with 1,096 filings. The 2014 has 103 on 2,076. Only the 2018 and 2019 cars, later and younger, sit lower.

Door latch — 3

Counted as filings that name a door latch, or a door that would not stay closed.

Three. The door campaigns that cover the earlier cars — 14V239000, 16V643000, 20V331000 — do not list the 2016 Escape, and the complaint record agrees that there is nothing here.

The knee airbag with nothing in it

One of the four recalls on this car is 2016-only, and it is worth reading in full because the defect is unusual.

17V398000, filed in June 2017, covers 2016 Escapes whose “driver’s knee airbag modules installed in these vehicles were produced without the inflator gas generant material, and, as a result, the air bags may not inflate properly in the event of a crash.” Ford filed it as a noncompliance with FMVSS 208, “Occupant Crash Protection.”

An airbag built without the chemical that inflates it will pass every inspection a used-car buyer can perform. There is no warning light for it and no test drive that finds it. The VIN lookup is the only way to know.

What doesn’t show up in the complaints

The body and the interior barely appear — 16 structure filings out of 1,096, and the door section above is three. The crash performance that earned four stars overall and five on side impact has not generated a pattern of complaints. The 2.5L is 138 of the 1,061 filings that decode and is under-represented in every section above.

What the complaint curve says

Filings ran 47 in 2016 and stayed under 90 through 2021. Then 157 in 2022, and after a dip, 145 in 2025 and 209 so far in 2026.

Both humps have documents attached. The 2022 rise sits alongside the shifter bushing recall filed that June. The 2025–2026 rise is the camera: take camera filings out and 2026 drops from 209 to 54, which is below where this car sat in 2020.

A complaint count going up can mean a recall letter arrived rather than that a car got worse. On this model year that is not a caveat, it is most of the recent data.

Complaint databases collect complaints. Nobody files to say the camera works. Rates are not comparable across models without running the same arithmetic on each. What this data supports is the ranking inside this car and the timing behind it.

If you’re looking at one

Ordered by what it costs you if it goes wrong, not by how many people filed.

Run the VIN for 17V398000 before anything else. The knee airbag recall is 2016-only, it is a bag that may have been built without its inflator charge, and nothing you can do in a parking lot will find it. NHTSA’s lookup is free.

Drive it long enough to get the transmission warm, and through more than one gear change. This is the largest section on the car, 74 filings describe a replacement or rebuild, and the part Ford recalled is not the part most of them are describing. A test drive that stays under 30 mph tells you very little here.

Ask whether the shifter cable bushing has been done. 22V413000 covers this car. It is the cheapest item on this list and the one that can move a parked vehicle.

Put it in reverse and look at the screen, then check the recall status. 25V695000 is open on this model year and phased, so “it’s on the list” and “it’s fixed” are different answers — 44 filings describe being told the part was not available.

If it is a 2.0L, ask about the block heater. 26V011000, from January 2026, covers 2.0L cars for a heater that “may crack and develop a coolant leak, causing it to short circuit when the block heater is plugged in.”

Pull the dipstick and look at the coolant reservoir, but do not lead with them. The engine sections on this car are smaller than on any earlier Escape in this series and the 1.6L skew is gone from them.

Numbers worth writing down

Four campaigns is the whole list on this model year.

The 2017 car is next, and the engine changes.

Sources

• NHTSA complaint database — 1,096 complaints for the 2016 Escape, quoted above by ODI number
• NHTSA recall API — four campaigns, quoted from the campaign summaries and remedy text
• NHTSA vPIC — engine and horsepower, decoded from the VINs attached to the filings
• NHTSA safety ratings — 2016 Escape FWD and AWD
• EPA fueleconomy.gov — fuel economy by engine and drive
• Ford 2015 RV & Trailer Towing Guide (official; the ratings did not change for 2016)
• GoodCarBadCar — Escape US sales figures

Complaint counts and quotes come from NHTSA’s public database, retrieved 2026-08-29; each quote lists its ODI number so you can look it up. Engine identification comes from decoding the VIN attached to each filing — 1,061 of the 1,096 decode. Recall applicability depends on the VIN — check yours at nhtsa.gov/recalls. This summarizes what owners reported. It isn’t buying or repair advice.