yesterday I drove my car and as I was turning the corner (luckily very slowly), all of a sudden I heard a loud noise and the car stopped. The rack pinion, wheel housing and what ever other things there are dropped to the ground because they were rusted through. Never had a warning. Is that a problem with these Fords, of course the car is totaled. Does insurance cover this, does Ford cover this? First time in my life, never buy another Ford again. Also have a Ford focus 2008, looks rusty underneath. Should I get rid of it ?
How many miles on the Escape and where do you live? A wet area with lots of salt (sea salt or winter road salt) accelerate corrosion problems.
Even if you are in the rust belt, there shouldn’t be that kind of rust for heavens sake. I’m in Minnesota and never seen that. Maybe on a 20-30 year old car. We had this unresolved discussion a year or so ago for both the Fords that were having the wheel well disintegrate and the Tundra frame. Maybe its a design issue but like then, I suspect it has something to do with the steel they are using and maybe the source of it-like untested China steel to save a few bucks? I dunno.
Insurance is not going to cover rust. You had a rust through warranty but its expired. You need to talk to Ford but I think I would not scrap it yet until a testing lab has looked at sample of the steel to see what the problem was.
1 Like
thank you for your answer, I will have to see what I am going to do next. I
am a Sr. citizen and computers are not my strength.
Had a friend that had his Toyota truck frame replaced no charge due to recall, check for a recall.
Sorry to hear you are having this problem. Taking the car to a Ford dealership seems warranted, so they can see what it was that failed, and to verify there’s no recalls or extended warranties available for this problem. It could be the case for example that a few inadvertently made it through the assembly line without getting the anti-rust treatment. If so, Ford might have that on record, by the vehicle’s VIN number.
I own a 40+ year old Ford truck, purchased almost new. When I lived in Colorado – that’s where I originally purchased it – where they had a lot of snow and salt on the roads I’d take it to one of those diy car washes with the power wand gadgets and power wash the under-carriage and wheel wells once a week, sometimes more often if it had been snowing a lot. That seemed help to prevent rust from developing enough for things to start dropping off the vehicle anyway.
That is premature rust even for Western NY where I live. 40- 50 years ago we had cars going to the junkyard from rust at 6 years old but todays cars seem to hold up 10-12 years if driven in the winter and parked on the street.
Unfortunately, there are several horror stories out there, concerning SEVERE rust-through and Ford Escapes
But this is outrageous . . . you might expect this after 10-15 years, not 8 years
I’ve heard that the brines used in winter remain ready to wreak havoc, when they get wet. Perhaps the only solution is to hose down EVERYTHING very frequently, perhaps every few weeks . . . ?!
78600 miles and yes, winter snow and salt
thank you for your reply
thank you for answering
thanks for replying
appreciate you answering
Did you purchase the Escape as a new vehicle? If not, do you know the history of the vehicle? If not, it may be possible that your Escape came from an area that was in a flood near the ocean.
It looks like this has been going on for a long time. One of the comenters mentioned bad steel. There certainly is a Ford rust problem though if you just do a quick Google search.
I bought the car 1 year old . It was a rental car in Florida
I was a food and beverage director in an 18 story hotel on the beach in Daytona, we always loved watching how many cars got submerged in ocean water as the tides rose. Sadder was spring breakers sunburned to a crisp and supplying ice for them as they laid in a bathtub of water. The thing that was most curious the tops of the ears and tops of the feet always got sunburned the worst.
Always wondered where the ocean ie salt water cars submerged went to, afraid you got one.
I’d bet money that this is a storm damaged (read: partially submerged) car from perhaps Hurricane Sandy or some other major event. Many states don’t require any identification of the event on the title, and many thousands from states that do have had their titles “washed” by moving them to other states. Many dealership owners own large chains of dealerships across many states. It’s estimated that there are thousands of storm damaged vehicles still out there… and many have been discovered the hard way. Sadly, it may be impossible to ever find out.
You have my sincere sympathy. About all you can do is thank God you were engaged in a slow motion action weren’t involved in a highway accident.
thanks for the you tube video. That is exactly what my car looks like, even
worse because I had parts falling off (rack and pinion, Wheel housing etc.)
will never buy a Ford again
After looking at the video posted by @bing and the fact that Ford did issue a recall with the repair shown in the video, I am inclined to believe that this is a design problem. Had the only Escapes that has this problem been ones involved in flooded areas, Ford would not have issued a recall.