My wife went to back out of a parking space at her office one afternoon and heard/felt a significant "thump." She got out to see if she had hit something. Nothing there. Got back in and drove home with no problems. Next day it wouldn't go into gear. After shifting from P to R a couple times, we got it to go. Had it towed to the shop, and they told us the transmission was completely shot. They also said this is a common problem with this vehicle. What could we do? It was worthless without a transmission, so we decided to pay the $4000 to get a new one shipped up from the Lower 48 and installed. Now we've got a new tranny with a 1 year warranty. We'll be selling this van before the warranty expires.

The moral of the story is that anyone who owns 1 of these should get rid of it before 100,000 miles. I have additional posts for the other problems we've had....all starting right around 100,000.

Update from Feb 11, 2014: This was accidentally posted for the wrong vehicle. I meant to post it for our 2005 Grand Caravan. The 1998 Escort has been the most reliable car I've ever owned. I just went over 128,000 miles and have had no problems that I wouldn't consider to be normal wear and tear.