2008 Ford Escape Hybrid: check engine light

Filed Jun 21, 2019 · Acceleration · 162,330 miles · OK

The vehicle won't stop. The regen brake disabled light, brake light and check engine light comes on. No brakes at all

Filed Apr 1, 2019 · Brakes · 112,000 miles · MI

112,000 miles while driving, vibration from right front of vehicle. Able to stop. Check engine and brake warning lights. Regenerative brake disabled. Vehicle to dealership with dtc - c1480. Internal failure of the hydraulic control unit for the ABS. Cost of repair over $5000 for hybrid specific replacement part number 2c286. Numerous reports of the part failing on internet and this site. With the price the hcu quoted to be $4700, I just the rest of the parts in this vehicle must be really inexpensive (cheap) given the original $28,000 price tag.

Filed Jan 2, 2019 · Engine, Steering · 133,588 miles · WI

Tl* the contact owns a 2008 ford escape hybrid. While driving 70 MPH, the steering wheel shook severely and the vehicle was out of control. Also, the check engine warning indicator illuminated. The contact coasted the vehicle to the side of the road and powered off the engine. The vehicle was restarted and was able to drive normally. The vehicle was slowly driven to matthews currie ford (located at 130 n tamiami trail, nokomis, fl 34275, (800) 248-2378) where it was diagnosed that the steering column assembly needed to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure and informed the contact that there was no recall associated with the VIN. The contact was referred to the federal safety agency. The approximate failure mileage was 133,588.

Filed Aug 7, 2018 · Brakes · 186,000 miles · SC · crash

While driving under normal conditions, the check engine light illuminated yellow, the ABS light illuminated, and the red brake light illuminated simultaneously. A message on the dash said "regen brakes disabled". The normal braking system failed to work. The manual (fail safe) braking system was inadequate to stop properly. I had to put the brake pedal to the floor as hard as possible and the car still did not brake properly. After much rolling, the car finally came to a stop, but hit a pole in the process causing a crack in the front bumper. Due to the long stopping process, the pole was unavoidable. It was the pole, the ditch, or another car, so I had to choose to bump into the pole for the least amount of damage and to be sure not to hurt anyone else. Traumatic experience for me and my young grandchildren!

Filed Oct 3, 2017 · Brakes, Electrical · 108,400 miles · VA

Pending failure of the hydraulic brake control unit. Abs, check engine and service brake lights would come on and go off. When lights are on the vehicle is more difficult to stop. Reading other's posts online, this seems to be an issue that happens often. Vehicle is unsafe to drive once failure is present. Only way to fix is with a $4,500 part that you have to get new from ford....

Filed Feb 3, 2017 · Brakes · 147,000 miles · OH

Vehicle brakes fail for no apparent reason, then eventually begin working for no apparent reason. No warning is given that anything is wrong with the brakes (I.e. No brake light, and no "check engine" light). In addition, the "all ok" light remains green, indicating that nothing is wrong. This occurs when the vehicle is moving at any speed (I.e above 35 MPH or below 5 MPH). The vehicle eventually comes to a stop, but only after a lengthy deceleration distance.*updated 3-7-17 I would see a warning that says 'regen brake failure.' in some cases, depressing the pedal would cause the brakes to lock-up. In other cases, the vehicle would slow down gradually, but would never stop even if the brake pedal was fully pressed. In the second situation, I would bypass my intended stop point, often a turn. The situation would occur without warning and last until I turned off the car. It sometimes went away after restarting, meaning the brakes would function as expected. The dealer diagnosed the problem and said I needed to replace the hydraulic control module and several brake lines. Estimated cost was $6200. I contacted ford to inquire about a recall, and was told that none exists for this situation.*smch

Filed Oct 27, 2015 · Engine · 70,000 miles · CA

Tl* the contact owns a 2008 ford escape hybrid. The contact stated that while driving at 60 MPH, the engine stalled as the check engine warning light illuminated. The vehicle was taken to a dealer where it was diagnosed that the throttle assembly needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 70,000. Update 01/13/16 ma

Filed Oct 9, 2014 · Electrical, Engine · 105,800 miles · CA

Engine died multiple times in a parking lot. Car had been idling and had recently been driven over thirty miles on the highway and the ambient temperature was over 90 deg f. Had the car towed home because the dealer service dept was closed. The next day the dealer was unable to reproduce the problem and no dtc found in ECM. Paid the dealer for diagnostic time and picked up up the car. One week later, the car died again while driving at about 10-20 MPH. Dashboard display said to pull over and park safely. After waiting for 30 minutes for the engine to cool, we were able to drive the three miles home. The next day at the dealer, no dtc found in the ECM, but the dealer said that the symptoms pointed to a throttle body problem. They were unable to recalibrate the throttle body, so they asked us to approve paying for a throttle body cleaning, which we did. This seems to indicate that the hybrid system directs the engine to shut off whenever it detects a sensor problem that it can not resolve. Most cars would produce a cel illuminated on the dash and set a limp home mode. The escape hybrid seems to just shut off and let you hope for the best. This may seem like an irrational response to a modest problem, but these were the same things that happened before when the problem was diagnosed as a pump problem for the electronics, which is now a safety recall for 2005-2008 escape hybrids. To compound the problem, the dealer did not offer to refund our previous payment for the pump replacement. I had to ask for it and am now waiting for them to give me a refund, even though the ford website clearly states that they should expedite refunds for prior work done once a recall is started. Unhappy on multiple levels.

Filed Aug 23, 2014 · Transmission · 78,455 miles · CA

On numerous occasions vehicle loses power, red triangle (warning) light on and (stop safely now) on message center with wrench light (service engine light). Vehicle can no longer be driven and must be pulled to the side of the road (if possible) placed in park and the ignition turned off. This will reset the red triangle light and stop safely now message usually on the first key cycle, sometime it requires a second off/ on cycle of the ignition. The wrench light (ses) may or may not reset, but will eventually go off. This has happened 8-10 times in the last year, so far at speeds of 35 MPH or less in city traffic. Not looking forward to the day or night that this happens on a busy freeway, it is hard enough to get to the curb in city traffic. This could cause some real problems on the freeway.

Filed Mar 18, 2014 · Airbags, Body · 127,000 miles · MO · crash

Since the first time I experienced a braking failure incident I have done a lot of research&visits to mechanics to retrieve codes thrown from the car off diagnostic machines. Replacing the hcu carries a premium price tag of $5k-7k. Prior to the first accident,there is no obvious way that I could have damaged the hcu with my very normal driving habits (I.e.no history of towing, no long downhill braking)&the hcu is not a component susceptible to wear to the point of early failure. I believe that the escape hybrids braking system is defective by design (hence the tsb)&fault lies with ford.I consider this brake failure very serious&a problem that ford had never bothered to notify me about or recall.my attempts to get ford's attention on this matter have been fruitless.to summarize the federal safety agency is not concerned b/c nobody has gotten killed by these defective brakes. Ford claims no responsibility for this very serious&significantly dangerous design flaw.after several episodes of brake failure I found tsb 05-8-5 (8/5/05 the federal safety agency id#10017553:escapehybridvehicles exhibit the yellow ABS&red e- brake warning lamps illuminating after the engine is started,&an increase inbrake pedaleffort)ford claims no responsibility to deal w/the problem.its not safe to drive w/o the repair,it had no value being broken,&I did not have the conscience to sell the vehicle w/a dangerous problem.fords failure to proactively address this safety issue is rather appalling.ford abandoned me w/a$7,000 bill to repair a problem that is solely related to their poor design.first accident description:ABS warning light&service engine light illuminated on cluster."service brake system"&"regenerative braking disabled" illuminated on message board. On the highway in rush hour traffic,upon extreme braking, brakes failed to stop the vehicle in time to avoid a rear-end collision with the vehicle stopped in front of me.

Filed Feb 28, 2014 · Electrical, Engine · 85,000 miles · CA

This week the news had stories about general motors recalling several cars because the ignition can suddenly turn off causing the car to lose power while driving. There were even deaths due to bad accidents as a result of the ignition failure and car losing power. This reminded me of an incident that happened to me which was similar. I was driving my 2008 ford escape hybrid last december, on I-280 in san francisco during rush hour at 65 MPH, when suddenly the dash beeped at me, flashed the check engine light, displayed a message to pull over safely, and the engine had no power! I suddenly found myself in heavy traffic, middle lane of the freeway and no power to safely pull over. I was losing speed and slowed to where I cut between other cars and over to the shoulder. I'm sure I cut someone off in the process. Luckily there was not a horrible accident. There could have easily been an accident. The same thing happened three more times in the next few days before I took the car to the dealer to be fixed. They indicated that this is a common problem of which they are aware. The ford dealer diagnosed it with code p1a0d, which was a bad coolant pump for the electric generator. I did some research and found that many other ford escape owners have experienced the same situation as I did where the vehicle lost power while at high speed and put them into a dangerous situation. A simple google search on this finds several blog reports of people with similar situations. Ford has yet to issue a recall on this, but I have found that there is a class action lawsuit against ford: macdonald v. Ford, case no. 3:13-cv-02988, in the us district court for the northern district of california.

Filed Jul 5, 2013 · Engine · 108,000 miles · VA

Driving for about 30 minutes at highway speed and the gas motor shuts off and goes in to limp mode using only battery hybrid power. The car won't restart motor while rolling. The dash shows a message to pull over and stop with a little red triangle. In order to restart the motor you have to completely turn the key to the off position. The car will immediately start back up and drive between 1/2 to 1 mile then shuts down again. Repeat process again and again until got off the highway. Once off the highway, I stopped with the motor shut it off for approximately 15 minutes and the car started back up and operated normally. Drove an additional 30 miles with no problems. No issues for about three weeks then same scenario of multiple stalls on the highway. Car worked fine the following day. No engine lights or codes. The first incident occurred while raining. The second incident occurred at night when it was dry.