1997 Ford Escort — reported problems

CarFaultIQ holds 698 evidence records for the 1997 Ford Escort, drawn from official sources and owner complaints.

What owners report: issue areas

Owner complaints are classified by the system they concern: 687 classifications in all. One complaint can concern several systems, so these add up to more than the number of complaints.

  • Air bags (restraint system)152 (22.1%)Official recall records for this system: 4, covering model years 1995–1997.
  • Electrical system118 (17.2%)
  • Suspension71 (10.3%)
  • Engine59 (8.6%)
  • Brakes46 (6.7%)
  • Powertrain (transmission & drivetrain)31 (4.5%)Official recall records for this system: 1, covering model years 1999.

Other / uncategorized: 21 classifications (3.1%) were not assigned to a specific system by the source. They are counted but not treated as an issue area.

These are counts of records held by CarFaultIQ, not a failure rate. More records can simply mean more vehicles were sold or more owners reported. No vehicles-in-service figure exists in this data, so no reliability or risk score can be derived from it.

What the records are about, by source

Each source is kept separate: owner complaints, recalls, manufacturer communications and investigations are different kinds of record and are never added together. All model years.

  • Owner complaints (4,466 records, model years 1995–2003) are most frequently classified under: air bags (restraint system), seat belts and engine.
  • Manufacturer communications (887 records, model years 1995–2003) are most frequently classified under: powertrain (transmission & drivetrain), engine and brakes.

"Most frequently classified under" reports how the records are filed by the source. It is not a finding about causes, and a record can be filed under more than one system. Read the individual records

Mileage reported when the issue occurred

  • 100reports included a mileage
  • 80,477average of those mileages

This is the mileage owners recorded at the time they reported, not an expected failure mileage and not a prediction for any individual vehicle. The lowest and highest figures on record are not shown: they are unverified odometer entries that include zeros and implausibly high readings, so they would not describe a real range. A median is not shown either, because the stored figures are group totals and a median cannot be recovered from them.

Evidence by model year

Records held per model year. Select a year to narrow this page to it.

  1. 1995 664 records for 1995
  2. 1996 296 records for 1996
  3. 1997 698 records for 1997
  4. 1998 502 records for 1998
  5. 1999 423 records for 1999
  6. 2000 136 records for 2000
  7. 2001 96 records for 2001
  8. 2002 58 records for 2002
  9. 2003 14 records for 2003

Counts are not adjusted for how many vehicles were sold in each year, so a taller year is not necessarily a worse year.

Reports mentioning outcomes

  • 66mention a crash
  • 83mention a fire
  • 65mention an injury

These are counts of records whose report mentioned the outcome. They are not a severity rating and not a safety assessment of this vehicle.

Official records held

  • Safety recalls NHTSA 2
  • Manufacturer communications NHTSA 150
  • Investigations NHTSA 2
  • Transport Canada recalls Transport Canada 1
  • Owner complaints NHTSA 543

Explore the underlying evidence records

Diagnostic codes found in evidence for this vehicle

These codes appear by explicit identifier in official records matched to this exact model and year.

A code appearing in a record means the code was named in that document. It is not a diagnosis of this vehicle, not a fault this vehicle has, and not an indication of urgency. Diagnosis requires reading live data from the vehicle.

Symptoms and warning lights in these systems

Where to go next