I'll try to keep this short, however, this is really strange, and it involves the main reason why the ford escape hybrid is the absolute most unsafe, and the poorest produced hybrid ever sold in the USA.

I had the notorious problem these have where the HCU (hydraulic control unit) starts to go bad and you lose the brakes with no warning and no beeping on the dash randomly when they start to go. I know enough about these that I purchased a used HCU from ebay, flashed my vin number on it with forscans programming, and installed the new one into the vehicle. After doing this I found out that forscans manual bleed without a power bleeder function was bugged and I could not properly bleed the air out of the HCU. I could talk to the HCU, the escape took the HCU and accepted it with the right vin number, as I could do several other tests that completed fine.

Knowing that I didn't have a power bleeder capable of sustained 30PSI pressure I made the call to my local ford dealership to have them do the power bleed process. At first they said it'd be a few hours and I could wait for it. I took the escape there, waited in the lobby, and 3 hours later they said they haven't done this process much, meaning they don't use their power bleeder often, and it was having problems and couldn't hold a PSI above 8. They drove me home in their car and told me they'd call me when it was done as they had to repair their power bleeding machine.

2 weeks later I get a call from them. They said when they fixed their power bleeder and tried to initiate a power bleed that brake fluid started coming out of "Literally every hose on the car" and that it was my fault because I replaced brake lines before. I know this isn't true, I told them I replaced a brake line when I took it there as the reason I needed a bleed process as if you tell them you successfully replaced the HCU they won't work on it.

So I want to understand this correctly, as this is the only car I've ever heard of this happening with.

A. Ford motor company designs ford escape hybrids specifically so that customers can not work on them.
B. The hydraulic control units go bad eventually, thousands have had this problem, and when they do you have to pay ford $5000 to replace them.
C. While ford motor company makes the escapes impossible to work on for customers, they also do not provide their dealerships with the proper equipment or training to work on them.
D. Nobody can work on a ford escape hybird, not even ford now

So to sum it up, the Ford motor company intentionally designs vehicles so that customers cannot work on them, and also forgets to tell their dealerships how to work on them.

I was going to buy a ford transit extended with a high roof, but seeing that nobody including a ford dealership can fix a ford, I think i'll pass.

I don't know what to do at this point, every time you tell a family member or a friend about this, they say "SUE THEM SUE THEM" but honestly what sense does it make suing one of the largest auto manufacturers over a $3000 - $5000 car.

What would you people recommend other than never buying anything ford makes ever again (I got that covered)?

 

Try not. Do or do not. There is no try. You did not succeed.

Since I detect only one question...

I'll recommend you:

1. Get your own power bleeder.
2. Get 72 hour access to all the tech manuals here: https://www.motorcraftservice.com/
3. Fix it yourself rather than lie to a dealership and then get ranty about an American dealership giving poor service. Seriously. Did you expect anything different? They don't call them stealerships for nothing.

Good luck.

 

+1 to S Keith. You've got this old, out-of-warranty car, you can't get it to work, and you want to blame everyone + the moon + dog.

Get yourself a power bleeder (you should be able to rent one) do the rest of what he says, and also watch this video. Check all your brake lines again too. You might just have a vacuum problem, or you might have bad brake lines!

You say you've discovered a bug in FORScan. Well, at least it should report codes. You have any to share?

What year is your car? Mileage? Are you sure you're working on the right car?

You might just have a bad check valve in the vacuum t-line, but you can buy that whole assembly and test the pump too, or find a good one at a junkyard. We've had another guy who fixed his system and it was just the vacuum line (or more accurately the check valve it contains.)

Here's the hose and tube assembly with the check valve:

https://www.fordpartsgiant.com/parts...z-9c482-c.html

https://electricvehicleforums.com/fo...tml#post273200

 

And if none of that works, I think you should sue them! Good luck!

 

I want to blame the place that admitted they made a mistake and couldn't fix it right, but I can see that questioning a dealership isn't allowed here because they can do no wrong. Sorry I wasted your time, and my time by posting here, I won't make that mistake again...

That video is for a 2009 or 2008 mine is a 2007. I know what my problem is, it has nothing to do with anything but the HCU. When you replace an HCU you have to run two tests before the vehicle will re-enable he brakes, at least on a 2007. The accuator test and the air bleed check or whatever it is called on forscan, that test doesn't pass obviously because when you replace an HCU and put a new one is, there is air inside the HCU that the bleed process fixes.

I'm more concerned with the safety of driving it after what they described with the brake lines but i can see after the responses that posting here was a giant waste of time.

 

Sorry, but when you start off with this, which is utter nonsense, not many are going to take you too seriously:

"I'll try to keep this short, however, this is really strange, and it involves the main reason why the ford escape hybrid is the absolute most unsafe, and the poorest produced hybrid ever sold in the USA."

 

For what?

 

So I bled my new style ABS doohicky with forscan. But another thing I ran into is that some functions didn't work depending on the interface I had. It wasn't so much a bug in forscan as a bug with the elm chips. My BT one will not program all modules for some reason, etc. The USB one will program everything. It could be an issue like that which prevented the bleed. It would occur on only certain service or programming functions.

 

1. You're insane if you try to drive the vehicle like this. It was presumed you had the sense to have the car towed home. If you were actually concerned about this, you might have filtered out some of the noise of your post and include this concern.
2. If you look at the content of your post and assess how much meaningful information it contained, it was a waste of time the moment you posted. Nevertheless, you still got the answers you need in spite of your immature nonsensical rantings.

Good luck.

 

Hilarity? I should have included an emoticon. Sorry.

I'd like to say this to the OP: You come here and post a question, and you begin by telling everyone: "...the main reason why the ford escape hybrid is the absolute most unsafe, and the poorest produced hybrid ever sold in the USA."

Well, that's nonsense. You started off your introduction to us with nonsense and an insult. Most of the people here are *enthusiasts* of this car, I know I am. They have their problems, sure, that's why this forum has been so valuable to us all. I like my car a lot, and the reason I contribute here is so that other people can like theirs, too.

If we believed what your first sentence says, we should just shut this forum down, sell our cars, curse the moon and Ford and be done with it! What the heck are we doing trying to keep them running? When you're introducing yourself to a lot of new people who are enthusiasts of the car you're asking for help with, it might be a good idea to NOT start off by insulting all of them!

In fact, if you look at the usage stats for this forum, you'll notice that it's one of the most popular, widely-watched and utilized forums here on EVF. That is not because these are *terrible cars*. It's because they are *great cars* and they're lasting a lot longer than a lot of other hybrids. People can fix them, and they enjoy driving them! The woman who sold my car to me (a 2010 Limited 2WD) absolutely *adored it*. She was sad to sell it, but her husband wanted something newer. There was literally *nothing* wrong with it when I got it a little over a year ago, and there's almost nothing wrong with it now. I would drive it across the country *tomorrow* thanks to the help of a lot of people on this forum.

Walk in anywhere and say: "I hate this place and I hate the reason I'm here" and try to make friends. You started off on the wrong foot.

Good luck!