Ford knew Focus, Fiesta models had flawed transmission, sold them anyway

Ford knew Focus, Fiesta models had flawed transmission, sold them anyway(freep.com)

42 points by aaronarduino 6 years ago | 17 comments

I drive a 2013 Ford Focus and have had the transmission serviced twice in the 26k miles its been driven. There's at least a 1-2 second delay in acceleration lag when I need to accelerate quickly; and it's gotten to the point where I consciously try to avoid those situations. I guess it has made me a more cautious driver, if I want to look on the bright side.

Luckily, I've never had it slip into neutral on the highway or randomly accelerate, but I have had it refuse to shift into a higher gear while getting onto the freeway. The issue would only resolve once I pulled to the side of the road and completely turned off the car and started it back up.

Definitely going to replace the car once it's paid off in January.

la_barba 6 years ago | |

I've observed the 1-2 second delay in multiple 'eco' mode automatic transmissions. I just did a roadtrip in a kia sportage and the lag was brutal on the freeway, especially when trying to pass. I drive a stick so maybe I'm more sensitive than others..

aaronarduino 6 years ago | |

I owned a 2013 Ford Focus as well. In the nine months of ownership, the transmission was replaced twice. Every transmission worked fairly well and then after about a month would start to stutter on acceleration and acceleration would lag then accelerate quickly startling me.

I was so glad to get rid of that car.

jaclaz 6 years ago | | |

Cannot say if it is exactly the same issue, but it seems that the Ford mechanics (at least here) are not trained to repair them and are not even capable of finding what the actual "root" issue is.

Additionally it seems that Ford has not found a good procedure to revive the transmission (i.e. new or rehauled transmission fail the same way).

A number of out-of-warranty cars (not that having Ford do anything effective within the warranty period is in any way easy) here in Italy (Focus and S-Max) have been seemingly recovered by using a special procedure to wash/clean the transmission of the old fluid, put in new "special" one + additives (and replace the filter) , then there is the need (via ODB2) to reset/calibrate the gearbox electronics.

The same or similar issue affects/affected also the DSG-7 gearbox mounted on many VW's/small Audi's (and Sjoda's/Seat's).

mikestew 6 years ago |

Subtitle: "The carmaker says that it's not a safety problem if your car slips into neutral on the highway."

It might not be a safety issue (and of course it is, who do you think you're kidding?), but it's illegal in the two states for which I've looked it up (my home state of IN, and current residence of WA). Here's WA's law: https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.61.630

cr0sh 6 years ago | |

Reread that law - it applies to downgrades (which makes sense - engine braking to limit speed going downhill).

On the flat, going into neutral - while if it happens unexpectedly can be cause for concern (as you'll be rapidly slowing down due to wind resistance), it shouldn't harm drivability, braking, or steering.

Any issue with safety at that point would be on the driver in control of the vehicle, imho.

nudiustertian 6 years ago | | |

Why is rapidly decelerating on the highway not a safety risk? Pileups happen because of this

zaroth 6 years ago |

This is a great peace of reporting. The amount of research and investigation put into this, the interviews with insiders, the look inside the engineering process, internal company emails, etc.

It shines an extraordinary light onto this catastrophic failure. And in this case, truly, the engineers do not come out looking good at all.

opwieurposiu 6 years ago |

This pdf has pictures of the guts of this transmision:

https://atracom.blob.core.windows.net/webinars/ford/dps6_int...

I drive a stick, but recently I have been driving my moms's automatic subaru and it has a really nice crawl feature for steep dirt roads. You put the car in x-mode, take your foot off the gas and the car will maintain the speed you are at regardless of changes in grade or traction. You can adjust the speed with momentary application of brake and gas pedals. The computer controls throttle and brakes on each individual wheel, you can hear the ABS on downhill grades. Anyway it was the first automatic I have driven that worked well enough to be better then a stick for my use cases.

gm_fan_boi 6 years ago |

GM declined to use a dry clutch DCT in their performance vehicles for this very reason. GM was able to anticipate this problem, you need to have a wet DCT to avoid these problems. When you have a dry clutch manual transmission the human leg compensates for the variability in the driving conditions that ford wants the computer to handle. A torque converter is much more reliable in these types of vehicles.

tomatotomato37 6 years ago |

The implied cause of the T-bone accident in the article is wrong; a transmission slipping into gear while stopped would stall a small idling engine like what would be in a Focus. That would be the throttle body issue, which in my opinion should have been the focus of the article over crap transmissions

Edit: better article - https://www.ncconsumer.org/news-articles/nhtsa-opens-investi...

mywittyname 6 years ago | |

I disagree. The transmission in the Focus/Fiesta fails to apply clutch torque correctly pretty often. This problem is especially noticeable at low speeds. Clutch engagement failure would not cause a stall, since the engine would just spin freely in neutral the entire time, burning up the clutch and causing it to engage even less.

It only takes an hour behind the wheel of one of these to realize that Ford knowingly sold a poorly designed, dangerous product to customers. People don't realize how bad these are until they actually drive them. All lawyers would have to do to win a class-action against Ford for this would be to let the jury take one of these home for the night, they will come back the next day with a unanimous guilty verdict.

Knight0fNever 6 years ago | | |

Ford settled: http://fordtransmissionsettlement.com/

angmarsbane 6 years ago |

My family has always been a Toyota/Honda family but my sister broke from the pack and bought a Ford Focus. She had to replace the transmission within a year. Once she sells it, if she buys another car, she's going back to Toyota/Honda.

olliej 6 years ago |

I don’t understand why so many customers are still fretting about paying off the vehicle.

Ford knowingly sold m, and continued to sell a faulty product. The warrantee is irrelevant: those customers should be able to return for a full refund, including load interest. End of story.