My "02 is showing signs around the wheel wells by the rear doors, but we had the extra undercoating so I'm crossing my fingers that mine is nowhere near like this.

You can bet I'll be poking around with a screwdriver this weekend.

I guess on the bright side you could pull the drive line out, install a 5L and tub the rear at this point.

 

I have a 2011 ford escape and am noticing rust starting to form on the rear wheel wells, noticed some bubbling up of the paint, this vehicle has only 59,000 miles on it. I will notify the dealer next time i take it in for oil change. Thank goodness this is my last supposedly made in USA vehicle.

 

it may be different now but from what I read the 03 or 04 model year there was a change and they and newer are the ones that rot. My Moms 05 the passenger side rotted badly she heard noises,it was the shock banging around. I made 3 patches and welded them in to the solid metel left. On the driverside there was like a 4 inch hole. my 2001 was mint in the wheel wells. My 2010 I had rustproofed

 

2005 Mariner, was my Mom's and she wintered in AZ and left car here in IA. I always washed and cleaned it before putting away for the winter. Now that it's mine I noticed rust coming through pinch weld on left rear wheel opening along with some really ugly rust in the frame rails above the rear diff. I'm just going to trade as soon as I can afford it. Looks like the whole thing will explode with rust within a year or two underneath.

 

My 2002 Escape was rust free when sold with 209,000 miles but my 2009 started showing rust on the lower seam of the rear hatch and faintly on one of the rear wheel wells around 170,000 miles. The newer models aren't as rust resistant as the earliest ones but hard to complain with this many miles.

 

the ones I have run in to have all been late 05-06 body style. ford makes a replacement panel and we have cut out the bad and replaced the panel on a few. not a bad job but I believe it was caused by factory undercoating in the wheel well creating a pocket and salt and water sticking and causing rust out. and it also seems to only be pass. side that rusts out.

 

I have a 2015 SE and since I live in the salt belt I had it undercoated by a private company. I run it through the car wash weekly including the underneath to prevent any corrosion. Most cars here start to rust at about 10 years regardless of what precautions you take...

 

Today is Fri 6/1/18. I paid $5500 for my 2005 Ford Escape 2 1/2 years ago. I've spent $2500 - $3000 on maintenance (brakes, etc). I also paid $3600 for full coverage insurance. The most recent work on it was done on 1/6/18, which included all new tires, oil change, both left and right control arm with ball joint, wheel alignment, and brakes - total $1475. Tues 5/29 I was making my daily 30 mile trip (on the interstate) to work when my car began making a head rattling clunking noise. After work I drove it back to the same shop since it was the last place that had worked on my car. I left my car there and not a half an hour later they called to tell me my car was not repairable, that the wheel well was completely rusted through, that the shock absorber was unattached and that there was nothing to attach it to. They advised me to call my insurance as they believed that my car would be totalled. We went to look at it and my bf asked why they didn't mention the rust issue to us when they installed the tires and brakes - after all, I could have been killed or any number of things could have happened. They explained that their people aren't mechanics and to contact my insurance company. Which I did. My insurance company denied my claim. I traded my Escape in on a 2015 Ford Fiesta with 30k mi. (My Dad retired from Ford, so I'm a Ford girl nonetheless). The dealer gave me $500 for my Escape. Horrible stressful experience. Needless to say, I learned a lot. I am going to contact the corporate office of the shop that last did work on my Escape. I still can't believe they got $1475 and didn't say a word to me about the rust...

 

My question is where do you live and are the roads salted there in the winter? I live in the Northeast where salt is used extensively in the winter. I bought a new Dodge Dakota pickup in 2005 and it was rusting out when I sold it with only 60K miles on it in 2012. I bought a used 2010 PT Cruiser in 2014 in Florida where it had never been in the salt and it is showing signs of rust in the rear fenders now with only 80K miles on it. I have come to the conclusion that if you live in the Northeast or anywhere salt is used on the road in the winter you may as well plan on it rusting out in 10 years or less regardless of the make. When I first moved here about 20 years ago I wondered why there were so few older cars on the road here. I no longer wonder about that and assume I need a new car every 10 years regardless. I might add that even washing the car every week including the undercarriage did not help either my Dodge truck nor my PT Cruiser. I'm assuming that I will have to replace my 2017 Escape before 2027 due to rust if I live that long (I'm 76). This past winter was my 2017 Escape's first winter. I put studded snow tires on it and had it heavily undercoated but decided to leave it in the garage all winter instead and use my already rusting PT Cruiser in the salt and snow. I will continue to do that as long as the Cruiser will pass state inspection and save my Escape for a later time.

 

Yup, rust isn't covered under insurance. Now if you'd have wrecked it because of the rust they would have.

Why didn't the shop tell you about it. Could be they weren't looking for it. Could be they don't care. Could be the guys working on it are just trained monkey and only know/do what is right on front of them.
Inspecting your own vehicle and not trusting someone else to do it.is the best thing you can do.

 

Scott, I agree, and I feel stupid. I doubt I will ever buy another 10yr old car again. Thanks for your reply.

 

Great Northwoods, I live in Indy, and yes the roads are salted here. As as a matter of fact our roads here are still riddled with what we Hoosiers call chuckholes (potholes). I guess it's a human condition to want to blame someone. Thanks for your reply. I appreciate it.

 

Unless you asked them to inspect the entire vehicle before doing the front end work it' not fair of you to be upset they didn't know about the rear rust. Sometimes that stuff is hard to find or see due to the factory undercoatimg Ford uses. Until it blows apart, then you know.

I bought my 2005 Ford Escape the end of December 2017 Before Christmas. I knew escapes had a rust issue, so I check mine out real good before I bought it. It's very solid all-around minimal rust. However, one of the first things I did when I bought it, wish to scrape and repaint both rear wheel wells. As noted earlier in this thread, the undercoating in the passenger side wheel well, was cracked. The driver side was as well, but not as bad . When I took a screwdriver and scraped It Off, huge chunks of undercoating came off. Underneath that undercoating, it was starting to rust! I figure it had maybe a year or two left, before the inner Fender would have had a hole in it. I thoroughly scraped and wire brushed all the undercoating, and removed everything that was loose before I painted it. I will be keeping a very close eye on this going forward and scraping and spot painting as necessary.

 

I wonder if we will see a rise in Escapes that "Lost control after hitting a bump"

 

I can attest from firsthand experience that it isn’t always going to be obvious that there is a huge problem lurking under the undercoating by just looking at the wheel well. I noticed a crack in the undercoating on our 05 Escape in the right rear wheel well that looked like it was starting to open up. I went to peel the undercoating off and found it was rot. The rest of it looked ok so I made a mental note to address it in the near future. Less than two weeks later all but the bottom portion of the shock mount area separated from the rest of the wheel well. Without being aware that it was a common problem with the Escapes there was no way I could have foreseen near total shock mount failure with the only external indication being a relatively small rust hole. So unless you know for a fact that the massive rot was clearly visible at the time your car was serviced you might want to cut the tire place some slack for not seeing or knowing about Ford’s rust problem.

As far as being killed or or the number of things that could have happened, well, luckily the rear shock on the Escape does nothing other than control the tire up and down movement. Other than the loud banging and reduced tire bounce control, the rest of the suspension is unaffected and the handling of the vehicle is unchanged. In other words it is not a catastrophic failure leading to a loss of vehicle control. Having a rear shock make noise may be scary, but that is about it.

Oh and it is repairable. Dorman as well as the ford dealer have a replacement panel for the repair costing around $200. I have the panel on order and will be repairing our escape as soon as it arrives. 924-358