Out of Gear

If you guys have some free time, I thought this was a neat piece of journalism into the focus/fiesta transmission issue at Ford.

https://www.freep.com/in-depth/news/2019/10/28/ford-investigation-out-of-gear/2166912001/

No real comments, just interesting.

(2012 Focus owner here) The best part is that after a half dozen trips to the dealership there is still nothing the manufacturer will do about it. The car has presented with the issue since 30k miles and we have dealt with it for 75k more... Mrs.Mofo will never own another Ford product.

The only option is to put a proper transmission in the car, which they don't have...So, they just need to wait people out, and hope a bunch of them get destroyed in accidents...

I assume this is for automatic transmissions? I've been considering manual transmission FOSTs and FISTs as potential MINI Cooper replacements.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

The 1.0 Ecoboost cars have a torque converter 6 speed. 

I "love" the FiST I inherited. Hate the pedal box as it's too small for me, makes my right foot hurt driving without the cruise. I like 35mpg vs the 18 in my Avalanche.

Buddy's wife has one.  Total turd, bought new.  Real shame since the rest of the car isnt terrible in an appliance sort of way and with the bad rep its worth $0 on the open market so you gotta hope it gets totalled out.  

Saron81 said:

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

The 1.0 Ecoboost cars have a torque converter 6 speed. 

As far as I have been able to find, only in the Focus.  I am unaware of the existence of a 1.0 automatic Fiesta.

I guess I must have been one of the lucky ones.  The 2011 SE had no problems up to 42K when it got totaled.   The '13 SE was fine til it developed a leak at 55K.  New clutch and seal under Fords program.    Better than new but then I got the urge for a FiST.

I thought we had a thread about this a year ago, when the article came out....

Crap article.  What transmission is the problem, what cars are affected?  What is the actual problem with them?  It seemed geared to generate more clicks on the equally vague stories linked at the bottom.

I bought a 2012 focus new with the dual clutch and used it to teach over 250 people to drive (it was my drivers ed school car). I have since sold it to my brother. I think he has like 150k+ on it. 

Yeah, it's not the smoothest thing in the world, but it still works. 

The problem is, even if only 1 in 1000 transmissions has a issue, that's still a heck of a lot of transmissions with issues. 

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

That, and people expect them to act and feel like regular automatics, and they just don't. I think if more people understood how they worked, and that they have actual clutches that are automated, their perception of the trans may be different. Don't get me wrong... there are A LOT of them with real issues... just saying this compounds the issue. 

Saron81 said:

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

That, and people expect them to act and feel like regular automatics, and they just don't. I think if more people understood how they worked, and that they have actual clutches that are automated, their perception of the trans may be different. Don't get me wrong... there are A LOT of them with real issues... just saying this compounds the issue. 

I don't think that would help, honestly. I knew what I was getting into with the DCT in my 135i. I wasn't, however, expecting to have it reprogrammed 3 times in 18 months to stop making it so jerky because it was dangerous in traffic. But it would slowly relearn the same crummy behavior.

Press gas, nothing happens, press gas a little harder........lurches forward, TC comes on and no power, you press the gas harder and then it happens again,etc. Granted a Focus doesn't make 300lb ft at basically idle.