I was test driving a 2003 Escape with 70k miles. I wanted to make sure the 4x4 On worked. The Escape was already warm as I had driven it about 4 miles at this point. I stopped, switched from Auto to 4x4 On and then drove slowly in the empty parking lot. (Yes, I know 4x4 On on dry pavement is not recommended. I didn't intend to run it this way for more than 30 secs.) When I went to make a turn, to see if the rear tires were truly locked, the engine simply shutdown. No stutter, or other hint that it was laboring.

I figured I probably caused that shutdown. I then shifted to Park, turned 4x4 back to Auto, and restarted the engine. As soon as I shifted to Neutral, the engine shutdown again. No stutter, no rough idle.

Again I returned it to Park, started the engine, and shifted to Neutral, and again it shutdown. Returned to Park, restarted. It ran fine in Park. No stutter or rough Idle. I let it run this way for about 30 seconds. I shifted to Neutral and again the engine shutdown.

I was able to repeat this two more times. Finally I figured I restart and just shift to Drive skipping over Idle as fast as possible. Especially since it always took about a second in Idle before the engine would shutdown. That worked, and I was able to drive it all the way back to the dealer without mishap.

Upon returning to the dealer, I thought I'd try to cause the shutdown one more time, but whatever had caused the prior shutdowns had since gone away and I was unable to get a shutdown shifting from Park to Neutral.

I passed on that Escape, but I've been wondering ever since if this behavior was the result of something I did, tripping a fault condition in the computer, that took awhile to clear, or if this is a known problem. I have read about spurious engine shutdowns in Escapes, but this doesn't seem to fit usual shutdown cases.

 

no issues with my 01 awd. doing any thing like that

 

It doesn't strike me as normal behavior, but not owning an Escape, I wanted to be sure. That, and I'm a bit curious as to what might have caused that behavior.