Turned onto a downhill road and my dashboard lit up with lights and ping warnings and the brakes went. I had my foot firmly on the floor and rolled to a stop at the bottom of the hill - thankfully a normally busy road was quiet. I parked it and had it towed. The first garage found error codes in the ABS system. I took it to a mechanic who was able to clear out the codes but by doing so did not resolve the issue. I consulted with two Ford mechanics - one said because the error code wasn't present they couldn't recall address the issue. I pursued it further asking of proactively the part that caused the problem could be replaced. I was looking at a $3000 fix but the part is apparently no longer available (Booster). The other Ford mechanic said, "...The codes will for sure return at some point since they were not addressed by doing repairs. They were only cleared to see if they will return. I am not able to tell you when that will happen though. It could be tomorrow, next month or a year from now...."

Why didn't Ford do a recall, have they discontinued the part to avoid having to do that? It's too bad because I really quite liked the Escape even though the heat/cooling system sucked - it was great in terms of storage space and met my day to day needs. Now in my mid-60s having to get a replacement as I don't trust this car at all. Fortunately, I found a way to trade it in as I cannot even scrap it without paying to have the battery removed first.