Ford Escape vs Toyota Rav4

Reliability comparison based on 46,724 federal complaints.

Source: NHTSA Complaint Data

The Verdict

Based on federal complaint data, the Toyota Rav4 has a stronger reliability record than the Ford Escape. This reflects complaint patterns across all model years — individual years may vary.

Head-to-Head

MetricFord EscapeToyota Rav4
Years of Data2530
Total Complaints34,91511,809
Avg Complaints/Year1396.6393.6
Recent 5-Year Rate465.2322.8
Crashes Reported1,0941,168
Deaths Reported2413
Total Recalls220148

Lower complaints and crashes = better. Green highlights the better number in each row.

What Breaks Most

Ford Escape

ENGINE 6,634
POWER TRAIN 3,858
STEERING 3,697
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 2,160
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL 2,053
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 1,868
FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM 1,693
ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING 1,503

Toyota Rav4

ENGINE 1,296
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 1,230
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 1,007
STEERING 856
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL 798
POWER TRAIN 737
AIR BAGS 726
POWER TRAIN:AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION 518

Best & Worst Years

Ford Escape Best
2025
24 complaints
Ford Escape Worst
2013
3,660 complaints
Toyota Rav4 Best
2000
34 complaints
Toyota Rav4 Worst
2007
1,239 complaints

Year-by-Year Comparison

Click any year to see full details.

Ford Escape

2001 (1387) 2002 (1388) 2003 (736) 2004 (715) 2005 (2030) 2006 (626) 2007 (350) 2008 (2398) 2009 (2337) 2010 (3171) 2011 (1867) 2012 (788) 2013 (3660) 2014 (2608) 2015 (1225) 2016 (1178) 2017 (3080) 2018 (1943) 2019 (637) 2020 (1907) 2021 (349) 2022 (253) 2023 (130) 2024 (128) 2025 (24)

Toyota Rav4

1996 (54) 1997 (61) 1998 (92) 1999 (75) 2000 (34) 2001 (418) 2002 (682) 2003 (392) 2004 (179) 2005 (168) 2006 (880) 2007 (1239) 2008 (707) 2009 (391) 2010 (493) 2011 (400) 2012 (355) 2013 (328) 2014 (267) 2015 (394) 2016 (289) 2017 (405) 2018 (426) 2019 (1143) 2020 (778) 2021 (475) 2022 (183) 2023 (215) 2024 (221) 2025 (65)

Complaint counts reflect consumer-reported issues to NHTSA and do not represent failure rates. Higher sales volume typically means more complaints. This comparison is based on aggregate data across all model years — reliability can vary significantly between individual years. See our disclaimers and methodology.

Page generated: 2026-03-29