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Yeah, our 2015 Escape is like that too. It's called a lifetime filter and its fluid change intervals are ~30K miles. I didn't know that and wound up changing the fluid @ 100K, it was a little dark but didn't smell bad. In the future I'll be more attentive to that.I learned CD4e transmission requires complete teardown to change the filter.
The repair doesn't require a new engine. I have the tool for installing the replacement threads and can knock it out in under an hour. But, yes, it's a stupid failure and I hope that engineer got his bonus revoked.Some of those horror stories are so stupid, like stripping out the spark plug threads on Ford Triton engines... some poor fella trying to actually maintain their Ford and surprise you need a new engine!