After reading some previous stuff on this site about some $3500.00 rebuilds.
I am becoming paranoid about towing my 2500lb tent tailer even though I have the heavy duty package on mine. My Escape is 2002 v6 and so far so good. I have been religious about transmission service. I am starting to notice that when I let my foot off the accelerator and coast and then resume acceleration again I notice a slight little thud as torque from the engine resumes, is this a warning sign or normal wear and tear? Maybe I'm just freaking myself out.
Please give comment. Thanks

 

The main warning sign is the shudder before the torque converter kicks in. Some have failed when new and just a few hundred miles, others with 50k miles...it's a hit or miss thing. I had 85k on my 02 before it was totaled. My 05 I4 auto is still new. Though I never towed with the 02, I frequently used it like a truck and had 2000 lbs of material in the back. No problems. How many miles on yours?

My totally unscientific observations on Escape tranny failures.
1) More frequent with the 4x4 option. I've seen more owners from the northern US have failures. I could be focusing incorrectly on this since I rarely see any 4x4 Escapes in Texas except at certain Ford lots (they're used and usually wholesale purchased from out of state). Ford's production numbers show just over 1/2 built are 4x4.
2) More frequent in the 2001 and build one of 2002. While all year s of anything built with the CD4E (1994 to present) have had failures, the 2001 Escape seems to have a larger failure ratio among the Escapes. Originally thought this had to do with vehicle age but since a couple of years have passed, 2001 seemed to be the worst year. Build one of 2002 wasn't as bad. The cutover to build two was around June or July of 2002 (I don't recall which exact month).
3) Personally, I think that if you do regular tranny service and your tranny dies, it would have died with or without doing any towing. Not that I believe in trannies with predestined end-of-life scenarios. I just believe there's something common leading to these failures whether it be QC, chip settings, tranny configuration, personal driving habits, etc. The original 1994 CD4E was used in a Mazda 4-banger with less HPs than the current Escape I4 and had a large number of failures. Ford/Mazda got the failure ratio down on various s over the years but the ratio spiked when they initially matched it with the 201hp V6 in 2001.

I trust it enough that I bought a 2nd Escape after the first one was totaled. You can pretty much pick any vehicle and find a flaw. The wife had an 02 Accord and they had a history of tranny failures. I looked seriously at other small SUVs before purchasing the 05 and still chose the Escape:
1) Honda CRV - 4 banger with a 5 speed auto. Honda overstates their mpgs (I know from experience). Cheesy interior and much more expensive since they're still built overseas. I really that dash mounted gear shift and step-van style park brake.
2) Jeep Liberty - econo-box with a really rough ride. The only true 4x4 small SUV but you get the Jeep non-quality and expense.
3) Toyota RAV - econo-box but Toy has ticked me off too many times with their arrogance.
4) Suzuki - mini-econo-box. Though they make nice motorcycles.
5) Nissan Xterra - the best looking (until the 2005 year since they now have the old Avalanche type fenders). Built on a truck frame and would do some nice towing but they ride really rough and mpgs are terrible (might as well get an extended cab F150 V8).

 

Thanks, for the response bananaboat, my 02 has 78,000mi on it. You seem right about the failures being a hit and miss thing. From what I read on earlier threads seems like towing didn't have anything to do with weather it failed or not. I personally think escape is the best looking small SUV.

 

59000 on my o2 v6, no warnings before the tranny let go. Ford covered it even though it was out of warranty, cost me 495.00

 

The CD4E tranny is a very light duty tranny. I barely trusted it to move my wife's '95 Mystique, let alone tow something with it. There have been upgrades over the years, but it is still very weak and barely lasts 100k mi. The MTX-75 is alot more beefier (except for third gear synchro)

You can do some beefing up by adding an external cooler (or bigger one, factories tend to be small), and a trans-go shift kit. The most common problem is runaway line pressure (which the shift kit solves). Some others problems are the pump, cracks in the case, pistons exploding, valve-body seals. And this happens on the light weight contour/mystique/mondeo platform. I am surprised that ford did not put something more heavy duty the Escape.

If you want to do some research, check out www.contour.org or www.fordcontour.org (which has one of the original engineers (Terry Haynes) of contour/mystique, and he tears into these tranny's daily.)

 

No such kit exists for this tranny, unfortunatly.
Tuner boxes seem to help.

 

Has anyone tried running synthetic MERCON?

 

Sorry...I meant synthetic MERCON

 

When I drive my girlfriend 03' Escape, the biggest thing I noticed is how slow and soft the shifts are. It also shifts way too often. I ALWAYS lock out overdirve when I drive it around town. If the shift patterns and the firmness were better, I bet it would last longer.