Top 5 Problems Ford Escape SUV 1st Generation 2001-07

Hey, friends, it's Len here from 1A Auto. So, today in the studio, we have a 1st Generation Ford Escape. We wanted to go over some of the top problems that we've come to find, so let's get started.

All right. Now, for our first problem, we're gonna get under the hood and we're gonna talk about ignition coils. Now your ignition coils play a very important part in your ignition system. Without them, your car's not gonna start. Essentially what's supposed to happen is your computer is gonna send power to the ignition coil, in turn, it's gonna send the power down to that spark plug, make a nice spark, and then boom, you get your ignition.

This engine's a four-cylinder engine, which means you're gonna have four ignition coils. Some of the symptoms you might have if you're having an issue with one of your ignition coils or multiple ignition coils might be potentially your car doesn't wanna start. It might also be maybe it just runs a little funny, like it has a misfire, or it seems as though it's kind of just [vocalization] and it doesn't seem like it has the power that it wants to have. You might also notice that you have a check engine light on the dash. And it's probably gonna tell you that you have a misfire in either one or multiple cylinders.

Some reasons why you might get some of these symptoms might potentially be, of course, your coils are located along the top of your engine, and if moisture or debris makes its way inside of one of your connectors, you might potentially see that there's an issue causing resistance. You might look inside here and see some funny colors. That's called corrosion and that's due to moisture.

Of course, if you were to go ahead and lift up on this and look inside, you're gonna see that you have another connection point. This area right here is exactly where your spark plugs supposed to go into. If you were to look inside there and you see that the spring is worn or damaged in any way or even rusted for some reason, well, of course, you're gonna have resistance and it's not gonna function properly.

This boot right here is also very important because if it's worn or damaged in any way, you could potentially making moisture get down inside here, and then, of course, you're gonna have that same issue where it made its way up inside there. Other than that, some issues that you might happen to find would be, of course, it's up on top of the engine. It's exposed to a lot of different things. There's gonna be water that makes its way through the radiator, even up and underneath, and then splashes up here. It could also be because there's a lot of heat coming from your engine, especially in the summertime. Water or heat could potentially cause damage to any electrical component.

So, now fixes for this. Let's assume that you had a check engine light and it told you that you had an issue on cylinder one. Well, what you would wanna do is, of course, go ahead and remove that coil and inspect it. You wanna see if there's any corrosion or damage to any of the boots or, of course, connecting points. Of course, if it looked like it was good, you can get down inside here, spray a little bit of air to make sure there's no debris in there, and then remove the spark plug. Take a look at that spark plug. If it looks like it's worn, it probably needs to be replaced.

Overall, if you find that there's an issue with the coil, what I would probably try to do would be to take this coil and then swap it maybe with one of these down at the other end. After that, I'm gonna get inside the car and I'm going to start it up and I'm gonna run it for a little while. I'm gonna clear that check engine light and I'm gonna see if it comes back on. If the check engine light comes back on, then what you're gonna wanna do is see where the actual problem is now.

Does it continue to say that it's still an issue with cylinder one or does it say that now the issue is over here instead of over on this side? If the issue moved when you move the coil, well, then you know that you have an issue with the coil itself. If the issue stayed in the same cylinder that it was before, then that more than likely means that you have an issue with something different than the coil itself. If for some reason you happen to find that it is an issue with one of your coils, it really only makes sense to replace them all because if one's worn or damaged in any way more than likely the other ones aren't far behind.

Now, for our second problem, we're gonna talk about your DPFE sensor. DPFE stands for differential pressure feedback EGR sensor. Now, this escape right here has the four-cylinder engine. That's not necessarily gonna have one of these DPFE sensors, but if you've got the six-cylinder 3.0, well, then we've got something to talk about. Now, the job of the DPFE sensor is to monitor the job of the EGR valve by measuring the pressure changes inside the exhaust gas pressure system. Now the purpose of the EGR system is to make it so unburned air-fuel mixture that didn't get burnt up in your combustion chamber gets to recirculate back into your air intake system so it can get re-burnt up inside that combustion chamber. This is, of course, gonna help with pollution and global warming.

Now, if you're having an issue with your DPFE sensor, what you're probably gonna notice is a check-in the light that comes on your dash. That's gonna be one of the most common things. Other than that, you might notice runnability issues. Maybe your engine seems like it stumbles a little bit or even just doesn't have that acceleration that you were hoping you were gonna have.

Now, why would this sensor tend to go bad? Well, of course, inside of the EGR system, there's gonna be a lot of heat and there's gonna be a lot of carbon buildup that gets built up inside. Of course, the gasses need to be able to flow through the sensor. And, of course, if they're filled with carbon or anything the like, it's gonna clog it up and then it's not going to be able to get a proper reading of the amount of pressure in the EGR system. And, of course, if you've got the system clogged up, it's probably gonna build up some heat in which case you're probably gonna have damage in that way. It might come down to melted hoses or even connection points.

Now to fix this issue, obviously, what you wanna do is pull that check engine light, assuming you have one. Make sure that we're gonna be fixing the right part here. Assuming that it says that you're having an issue with the EGR valve or even the DPFE sensor, you wanna go ahead and remove both of those. Once they're off, inspect them. See if you see any issues with the connectors or even the hoses leading to them. If you see any issues with those, you're gonna need to take care of it. Other than that, once you remove both of those, go ahead and inspect them internally. Try to take a little peek, see if you see any black crunchies that look like they're inside there. Give it a little scrap if you need to. And if any black crunchies come out of there, it's probably carbon buildup.

If you've got carbon buildup inside either one of these, the best thing you can do is try to clean it out of there. When you try to clean out the DPFE sensor, don't go using a brake cleaner or anything like that because you could potentially damage the sensor. Be very careful on what you use, but try to clean it out. Now, after you put everything back together, go ahead and clear that check engine light, and then take it for a road test. We're gonna go with the hope that the check engine light stays off. If it does, and the car runs fine, then you're probably good to go. If the light comes back on, you're gonna have to start replacing those parts. I would start with the DPFE sensor, and more than likely the EGR valve at the same time.

Now, for problem number three, we're gonna talk about blower motor resistors. No, this isn't the one for this particular car, but it is something that can I have in my hand so I can talk to you about it. The blower motor resistor itself is gonna serve a very important job inside your passenger compartment climate control system. So, if you were to take your switch and go from the lowest setting, all the way to the high, it's gonna decrease the amount of resistance of the voltage from your switch going to the blower motor.

The reason why this one here has all these different springs or coils on it essentially is to increase or decrease the amount of resistance for the voltage going to your blower motor. They make these in all different shapes and sizes. Some of them don't even have any types of coils on them that you can physically see, they just have like a little microchip and stuff inside, or even other types of little circuitry that goes on inside that you can't really even see. This one's just kind of one that's a little bit out there and I wanted to show you.

Blower motor and resistor are gonna be located underneath your passenger side dash right next to where your glove box is. Now, for symptoms of having a bad blower motor resistor, what you're probably gonna notice is you come over here to your switch, on level one, you'll have no power to no power, three, no power, but on level four, all of a sudden that blower motor seems to kick in on high and you've got air coming out of the vents where you're asking it to. Aside from that, you're really not gonna find too many other symptoms in exception of the fact if you were having an issue with the blower motor itself and it overheated any of the wiring. If that's the case, you might happen to smell a little bit of burning plastic smell.

A couple of common reasons why your resistor might tend to go bad could potentially be moisture inside your HVAC system. Maybe there's a lot of humidity in the air or something like that, it makes its way inside and maybe it sits on one of those coils or even on the circuitry. Other than that, if you're having an issue with your blower motor, where maybe it's bound up in some way or having a hard time turning, the resistor is gonna be sending a lot of juice to the actual blower motor, but the blower motor is gonna be kind of sending it back or holding it back. So, that's gonna cause a lot of voltage buildup inside of the actual resistor itself and, of course, it's gonna cause heat, which in turn is gonna damage the resistor.

Now for fixes for this, what you're gonna wanna do is locate that resistor. Like I said, it's going to be underneath the passenger side dash and it's gonna be very close to that firewall. Once you find that, go ahead and unplug it, remove it from the actual box itself, and then thoroughly inspect it. If you happen to see that it looks like it's damaged in any way, maybe it overheated, or like I said, it got a little wet and maybe the circuitry looks a little bad, you're gonna have to go ahead and replace it. But don't just stop there. You wanna make sure that you're removing inspect your blower motor as well. Thoroughly inspect that, make sure it's not binding in any way. If the blower motor has an issue, it's gonna cause an issue with the resistor as well.

Now, our fourth problem, we're gonna talk about transfer case problems. Now it's super common on these Ford Escapes to have all-wheel drive or four-wheel-drive, whatever you wanna call it, but I'll call it all-wheel-drive. To have that ability, you need to have a transfer case and that's gonna, of course, transfer the power from the front also to the rear as well. Without that transfer case, you're only pretty much gonna have a front-wheel-drive car, which is what we have here.

But anyways, if you had the all-wheel-drive car, like I said, you're gonna have that transfer case. It's gonna be also very common for these transfer cases to go back internally. There's gonna be shafts inside, of course, that are gonna have gears located on them. Unfortunately, for some reason, those gears shear right off of the shaft itself. And then while you're driving, you're gonna end up hearing metal tinging sounds sounding like they're coming from your drivetrain. This can be very scary. It can also sometimes sound like you're driving on mud tires on hard pavement. You know that [vocalization] that you might get? Well, that's from the gears on the inside of your transfer case slipping and not gripping like they're supposed to be.

Other symptoms that you might happen to get besides just that growling noise or even metal-sounding noise coming from your drivetrain might be the lack of power coming from the actual car itself. You go ahead and try to accelerate, some of the power is getting transferred to that broken shaft and some of it's going to the front. So, you're not gonna be getting all the power that you need. And in some cases, you might not even be able to drive at all. And if this happened to happen in inclement conditions, such as maybe snow or even muddy conditions, what you might happen to notice is only your front wheels are turning, but for some reason, those rear wheels aren't.

Now, as for fixes for this, there isn't really much you can do for it aside from just go ahead and replace the transfer case. There are, of course, some seals and stuff that are available for the transfer case. But if you're having an issue where you had a metal part come apart from another metal part inside your transfer case, unfortunately, you can't really buy those parts. So, to go ahead and fix this, you're gonna have to replace your transfer case.

Now, for our fifth problem, we're gonna talk about tailgate glass. And for this particular issue, it seems as though it breaks on its own. Now the symptoms for this are a little bit complicated to explain, but essentially what happens is you can either be driving in the car or even just have it parked and you're inside your house relaxing and all of a sudden you're a big [vocalization]. What was that noise? Maybe you look in the rearview mirror, you come right out of your house. You look, and there's no back glass in your escape. Obviously, this one's still fine, but this can be very scary especially if you're driving in the car maybe with a little kid inside the back seat, they're gonna be very close to this, and, of course, that's gonna be overwhelmingly scary.

Now, as for a reason why the glass might tend to break, it doesn't necessarily come down to maybe somebody had a little marble in a slingshot and they flung it out your window or even a rock come flying up. What could potentially happen was is maybe the mounting points for the glass where anything's mounted onto it, if it was torqued improperly, it's putting a lot of strain on the glass itself. Any little vibration or even rapid temperature changes could potentially cause something to happen with the glass where, well, it just breaks. That's gonna be very scary and unsafe overall.

Now we're gonna talk about fixes for this, unfortunately, I don't have a preventative maintenance fix for this. I don't really have anything that's gonna be able to say, "Well, you can go ahead and do this and it's gonna make sure that the glass just doesn't break on you." Unfortunately, I can't give you that. But if the glass did happen to break on you, pretty much your only fixed of course is gonna be to clean up the mess, and then you're gonna replace the glass right here. When you do that, you wanna make sure that you replace it with a specific glass that's tempered.

Okay, friends, so that's pretty much what I've got for you for top problems on a 1st Generation Ford Escape. Like we always say, every car has problems. Maybe you have a car of your own with problems of its own. Or maybe you just have a story to talk about. Either way, leave it in the comment section below because I always love to hear from you. Of course, if you liked the video or you learned a little something, go ahead and smash it on the like button for me. It would mean the world. While you're at it, go ahead and subscribe, ring the bell, and click on that share button and that way there you and all your friends can be kept up with all of our latest content. Thanks.