I first had an issue with my idler pulley around about the fall of 2012. I was driving and all of a sudden I heard the pulley fall out of the car and lost power steering, alternator, AC, and the coolant pump. I probably had somewhere around 70,000 miles on my 2007 Ford Escape at the time. I have the 2.3 L 4 cylinder engine. I didn't think much of it, so I went and bought another pulley and belt from Autozone or the like and grabbed a replacement M8 bolt from the shop I work at. It was a grade 8, so I wasn't very concerned, but I was surprised how long they hang that little bolt out with a cantilevered load. I wouldn't be surprised at

About September of 2015 I hopped in the car after lunch and was idling through the parking lot when the bolt snapped again. I called my insurance to send a tow truck to bring the car to the shop, but they never showed up after waiting an hour and a half, so I decided to drive it back to my work and fix it myself again. Never use Lightning Towing if you live in Houston! This time I tried to call a shop before hand to get the OEM bolt, thinking that might have been the issue, but they just sold me the same bolt I had previously used. I was able to salvage the idler and belt from the parking lot. I was able to wedge my hand in below to remove the sheared off end of the bolt through the tapped hole. At this point it was an aggravation, but I figured if this is all the trouble I have with the car in three years, I'm not doing too bad. My mileage was probably about 105,000.

Fast forward to 3/14/2016, only about 6 months later now and the bolt breaks again, right when I was leaving the house to pick up my mom from the airport. Talk about convenient timing. I was stuck driving the car to the dealership because I couldn't leave my mom stranded. It was only about 5 miles so I got there before the engine could overheat. I got a ride to pick up my wife's car and now figured I must have done something wrong on the last repair. The dealer had the car for about 3 days and charged me $433 to fix it, reference invoice FOC 837037. They replaced Ford part numbers 1S7Z-8678-AC (KIT-TENSION 84493) and 5L8Z-8620-A (V-BELT 774024). My mileage was 114,121.

About two months later now on 5/26/2016, when I'm driving down the highway about 75 MPH in traffic the idler pulley bolt breaks again. That was an exciting clang. I pulled over at the next exit and called my insurance for a tow truck again. I should have learned from the last time because it was the same wrecker service "Lightning Towing", yeah right. I waited an hour and then gave up on them when I saw another tow truck pull into the gas station I was at. They had no intention of showing up, but that's a side bar. I got a tow from A Plus to the Ford dealership and then they even drove me home. Ford has the car for about a week this time to be sure they've fixed it. They made a warranty repair on invoice FOC850477 replacing the same idler pulley and felt that the alignment must have been wrong on the last repair. My mileage was 116,238.

I'm now moving to CO and about a week into my new job the idler pulley breaks yet again on 7/22/2016. This time my wife was driving the car. The pulley and belt fell out and were not recovered. I didn't feel like chancing my luck on a tow truck again and the service department was about to close, so I drove the car there stopping about 3 times to keep the engine from overheating. They hold the car for about a week and put in hotline assistance request 110562678 with Ford to weigh in on why this keeps happening. Ford tells them that the only solution they know of is to replace the engine!!!! Yes, that sounds insane to me too. Unless Ford wants to pay for my replacement engine I'd like to try other options first, however I am still in the process of moving and have no tools at my apartment to mess with this. They "fix" the pulley again although we both know that it won't last, but it gets me down the road a little while longer until I am in a better situation to do something. My mileage was 118,244. I also opened case number CAS-10126461-L0R8K1 with Ford to help me with a rental car after repeated repairs and they did at least help with that, so at least I know they are slightly engaged.

I'm starting to figure out the timing of this now so it wasn't entirely a surprise when the idler pulley bolt broke again on 9/28/2016. Ford last stated that "the bolt breaking would likely be the root cause to the damaged threaded hole in the engine block. This could also be caused by faulty accessory drive components, or alignment concerns with the accessory drive components. With the bolt being broken, this likely caused damage to the threads in the bolt hole causing the repeat failure. Please continue to replace the short block to repair the concern." I agree with what they said, but I think the real question is why did that bolt break in the first place? I think the answer is it was a POS design. I'd like to see Ford do an FEA on that bolt.

So now they have quoted a new engine for $6600 on a car that is only worth $3000 if it ran. My wife took an Uber to work for a few days and I bought a Subaru. I'm waiting to hear back from Ford now to see if they will at least reimburse me the $433 for the repair that never took. I'll probably make my own custom pulley with a much larger bolt now to see if that fixes it. It's obvious Ford is not going to address this issue. I'll let you know if I find a cheap fix. I expect that the issue may be exaggerated on my vehicle because I just about always ran the A/C which cycles a load on the pulley every time the compressor kicks on. I'd be curious to hear if the other people who are having issues with this also run the A/C frequently. Hope that helps someone down the road...

So, back in March of 2015, The idler pulley bolt broke in such a way that the engine had to be partially removed to have it replaced. The cost was one thousand seven hundred dollars. Six weeks later, it happened again. but this time there was enough of the bolt left hanging out of the mounting bracket that it was replaced without removing the engine. About one month later, it happened again. So, we took it to another technician, believing that maybe the previous one may have not been doing something quite right, like torquing to spec. We informed the tech of the history to date and of the research that I'd done and he gave us a guarantee that it'd be replaced for free if it happened again. Boy, he didn't know what he was getting himself into. Fast forward many months later and FIVE more broken idler pulley bolts and it was almost a weekly occurrence. The point that the insanity stopped was a couple of weeks ago, when, not less than THREE days after it being replace, IT BROKE AGAIN! During this time, I'd become well acquainted with Ford Motor Company and it's defense of "not having any knowledge" of this issue. And "We hope that this does not make you a disgruntled Ford customer". BS. The supporting evidence of this being a problem can be found by doing a simple google search of the 2.3l ford motor. More specifically, the Ford Fusion Forum, where there are numerous complaints of very same issue associated with this engine. My personal opinion on this is that Ford made an idler pulley bolt of MARGINAL diameter, 3/8", which, when new, would work for just so many miles (seems 100000). At such time, the threads of the mount for the offending piece (of s---) will become worn to such a degree that it creates 'play' for the bolt. The mount is an integral part of the engine block, which is aluminum. The bolt is grade eight (significantly stronger). What happens is, the repeated removal and replacement of the bolt increases the wear of the mount, making the the break occurrence more frequent each time it is done. Funny thing is, after the third time that this happened and FMC brushed us off, I knew that we HAD to get rid of this POS. If it had not been for the ladder tech guaranteeing his work, we would have. At any rate, we endured this until now, and total expenditures including rental cars, for the past eight months has been over four thousand dollars. All for a f------ bolt! If you ask if I'll buy another Ford product, be prepared for lots of profane language.

I purchased this 2007 Escape in May 2013 with 77,000 miles on it. In November 2013 while riding down the road (or up) the power steering went out, engine started warming up rapidly. I pulled to the side of the road to see what was the issue, opened the hood; the drive belt and idler pulley was missing. To make a long story short the idler pulley broke off, it's just an 8mm bolt. First thing I did was call Ford to see if there was a TSB on this issue, well there wasn't, surprise. I replaced the idler pulley as well as the tenisoner pulley. To get the broken bolt out of the engine block is a pain in the ass! On May 5 2014 idler pulley broke again!