2018 Ford Escape3rd gen (2013–2019), facelift, second year

Updated 2026-08-29NHTSA counts read on this date — 1769 complaints. They rise over time.

Nearly Every 2018 Ford Escape Coolant Complaint Involves an EcoBoost Engine

Two thirds of everything filed about this car is coolant. Decode the VINs and the coolant filings are not picky about which EcoBoost — the 1.5 and the 2.0 each take about the share of them they take of the whole complaint record. The engine with no turbo on it is almost absent.

Owners have filed 1,769 complaints with NHTSA about the 2018 model year. Ford sold 308,296 Escapes in calendar 2017 and 272,228 in 2018, and the 2018 model year sold across both, so the denominator is in the hundreds of thousands. That is not a rate — 1,769 filings are not 1,769 owners — and the count earns its keep only because the other years in this series are counted the same way.

The basics

Second year of the facelifted third-generation Escape, and mechanically the 2017. Same three engines — 2.5L naturally aspirated in front-wheel drive only, 1.5L and 2.0L EcoBoost — and the same six-speed automatic.

What changed is the mix. On the 2017 car, filings that decode split roughly half and half between the 1.5L and the 2.0L. Here the 1.5L is 80.7 percent.

Specs

Fuel economy is EPA. Engine identification throughout this page comes from NHTSA’s vPIC catalog, which decodes the VIN attached to each filing.

NHTSA rated it five stars overall — five frontal, five side, four rollover, on both drivetrains, the same as the 2017.

What owners filed

Sections below are sorted by count and each complaint is counted once. They add up to 1,441. The remaining 328 are spread thin — NHTSA tagged 162 of them engine and 38 unknown or other, and nothing else reaches thirty.

1,732 of the 1,769 filings decode to an engine: 1.5L 80.7 percent, 2.0L 15.9, 2.5L 3.3. Those are shares of the complaint record, not of the cars Ford built, and the sections below are read against them.

Coolant and overheating — 1,173

Counted as filings that name the coolant, the engine overheating, or a head gasket, and that NHTSA has not flagged as a fire.

Sixty-six percent of everything filed about this car — a denser concentration than any other model year in this series, including the 2017 at 58 percent.

579 of the 1,173 use the word cylinder. 498 use the phrase coolant intrusion. 274 describe an engine being replaced. 258 say overheat, 244 name a misfire, 149 a spark plug.

Here is the engine split, and it is the reason this page has the title it has.

Both turbos land within two points of their share of the whole record. The naturally aspirated engine accounts for 3.3 percent of the filings that decode and two of the 1,155 in this section.

The same shape holds on the 2017 car: the 2.5L is 2.7 percent of filings that decode there and 0.4 percent of its coolant section, six out of 1,526. Two model years, the same absence.

This is not a failure rate by engine. Nothing here divides failures by how many of each engine Ford built, because the complaint record does not contain that. It compares each engine’s share of one section against its share of the whole record, and a car whose engine draws more complaints of every kind would move both numbers together. What survives that caveat is the size of the 2.5L gap: 3.3 percent of the record against 0.2 percent of this section.

What it supports is a narrower statement than the one owners usually make: on these two model years the coolant complaints are not specific to the 1.5L, and they are close to absent on the engine without a turbo.

From ODI 11756727:

“Coolant is leaking into the head causing engine failure. This car has fewer than 60,00 miles. From what I have read this is a common problem and is due to a manufacturer’s design flaw. Ford refused to help me in any way when I contacted them. When I took the vehicle to the dealership they informed me that the engine would need to be replaced. The bill would be $13,000.”

And ODI 11756100, which is what the tail of this section looks like:

“Engine has been replaced three times already. Now, the engine has a constant cylinder 2 misfire with coolant level significantly decreasing. Car is shuddering real bad now. This is not the first time it happened. Before the third engine replacement, the car was moving on its own even with foot on the brakes. Very dangerous vehicle and unsafe.”

There is no engine recall on this car. NHTSA lists four campaigns against the 2018 Escape and none of them touches this. Fifty of these filings say so.

Ford has service bulletins on it. 113 of these filings cite a Ford bulletin by number, most often 22-2322, 19-2346, 22-2229 and 22-2134. A bulletin goes to dealers rather than owners, carries no free repair, and generates no letter — but it is a number you can say out loud at a service desk.

Transmission and shifter — 189

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

22V413000, from June 2022, covers 2013–2019 Escapes for a shifter cable bushing that “may degrade or detach.” That campaign reaches this car.

Stalling — 28

Counted as filings that say the car stalled.

Twenty-eight, against 434 on the 2013. On this model year a car that quits is almost always described in coolant terms first, so it is counted above.

Brakes — 16

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged service brakes.

One 2018-only recall sits here and it is worth a VIN check. 18V104000, from February 2018, covers 2018 Escapes that “may be equipped with incorrect front brake hoses that may chafe against other components, possibly resulting in a brake fluid leak.” NHTSA’s consequence line: “A brake fluid leak may lengthen the distance needed to stop the vehicle, increasing the risk of a crash.”

Power steering — 14

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

Fourteen. The facelift’s steering hardware has stayed out of the complaint record on both the 2017 and the 2018.

Backup camera — 9

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

Recall 25V695000, the camera campaign that dominates the 2015 and 2016 records, does not list the 2018 Escape.

Door latch — 7

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

Fires — 5

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

Five. The 2014 has 103. Whatever burned on the 1.6L cars is not what is happening here — this failure replaces engines rather than igniting them.

The side curtain airbag

The other 2018-only recall is 17V803000, filed in December 2017. The side curtain airbags “have a component that may detach during deployment,” and NHTSA’s consequence line says it “may enter the passenger compartment and be a projectile within the vehicle cabin, increasing the risk of injury.”

Like the 2016 car’s knee airbag campaign, this is a defect no inspection finds. It only appears in a crash, and the VIN lookup is the only way to know whether it has been fixed.

What doesn’t show up in the complaints

The body, the interior and the seats barely appear — 15 structure filings out of 1,769. The crash performance that earned five stars overall and five on side impact has not generated a pattern of complaints. The transmission section is a tenth the size of the coolant one, and the electric steering that dominated the 2013 car’s record has all but vanished.

What the complaint curve says

Filings ran 25 in 2018 and stayed under 60 a year through 2021. Then 150 in 2022, 256 in 2023, 462 in 2024, 490 in 2025, and 246 so far in 2026.

That curve is still climbing eight years in, and the coolant section is nearly all of it. There is no recall to explain the shape — there is a failure arriving as the fleet ages, and a phrase spreading with it. 498 of these owners write coolant intrusion.

The useful comparison is the 2013 car, whose record peaked in 2019 and has fallen every year since. A 2013 Escape has mostly already broken or already left the road. A 2018 has not.

Complaint databases collect complaints. Nobody files to say the engine is fine. Rates are not comparable across models without running the same arithmetic on each. What this data supports is the ranking inside this car, the engine split inside that ranking, and the timing.

If you’re looking at one

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

Get a compression or leak-down test, or walk. Two thirds of the complaint record on this car is one failure, 274 filings describe a replaced engine, one quotes a $13,000 bill, and there is no recall. Neither test rules coolant intrusion out — an engine can pass both and fail later — but they are the cheapest look inside you can get before you own it. Nothing else on this list matters as much.

Do not pick the engine by displacement. In the complaint record the 1.5L and the 2.0L each take about the share of the coolant section they take of everything filed. The one that is close to absent from it is the 2.5L, which was front-wheel drive only and is rare enough that you may not find one.

Look at the spark plugs and the misfire history before the temperature gauge. 244 of these filings name a misfire and 149 a spark plug. On this failure the plug usually finds it first — ODI 11756389 describes a shop replacing plugs and cleaning injectors a week before the diagnosis came back as coolant intrusion.

Ask whether 18V104000 has been done. Front brake hoses that may chafe and leak, 2018 only.

Ask whether 17V803000 has been done. Side curtain airbag component that may come loose in a deployment, 2018 only. You cannot see it and it does not set a light.

Ask whether the shifter cable bushing has been done. 22V413000 covers this car.

Numbers worth writing down

Four campaigns, and none of them is an engine campaign on a car where two thirds of the complaints are the engine.

The 2019 car closes this generation, and its record is the smallest of the seven.

Sources

• NHTSA complaint database — 1,769 complaints for the 2018 Escape, quoted above by ODI number
• NHTSA recall API — four campaigns, quoted from the campaign summaries and consequence text
• NHTSA vPIC — engine identification, decoded from the VINs attached to the filings
• NHTSA safety ratings — 2018 Escape FWD and AWD
• EPA fueleconomy.gov — fuel economy by engine and drive
• 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 — 1,732 of the 1,769 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.