NHTSA Complaint #11421976 — 2013 FORD ESCAPE

One of the radiator hoses, causing all of the coolant to drain in less than 1 second, followed by tremendous amounts of smoke coming from the engine. A warning light came on the dash, with a loud alarm. The car immediately overheated and had I not stopped driving the car in seconds, it would have overheated & destroyed the engine. This occurred in heavy traffic, on a highway while I was in a middle lane. This made it hard to get to the shoulder and other drivers were not letting me move over easily. Once of the shoulder, I was stuck for 4 hours with an engine that was smoking so badly, I thought it might catch on fire. Prior to the moment the part failed, there was no warning. I had the vehicle towed to the dealer repair and they replaced the hose. The dealer repair person said that these hoses fail with some regularity and I was just unlucky to have it happen under the circumstances (being on a highway, at speed, during high traffic time).