Ford knew Focus, Fiesta models had flawed transmission, sold them anyway
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Ford knew Focus, Fiesta models had flawed transmission, sold them anyway
#2Subtitle: "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
Re: Ford knew Focus, Fiesta models had flawed transmission, sold them anyway
#3I 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.
Re: Ford knew Focus, Fiesta models had flawed transmission, sold them anyway
#4The 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...
Re: Ford knew Focus, Fiesta models had flawed transmission, sold them anyway
#5I 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…
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..
Re: Ford knew Focus, Fiesta models had flawed transmission, sold them anyway
#6I 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…
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.
Re: Ford knew Focus, Fiesta models had flawed transmission, sold them anyway
#7The 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...
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.
Re: Ford knew Focus, Fiesta models had flawed transmission, sold them anyway
#8This 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.
Re: Ford knew Focus, Fiesta models had flawed transmission, sold them anyway
#9The 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...
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 so…
Ford settled: http://fordtransmissionsettlement.com/
Re: Ford knew Focus, Fiesta models had flawed transmission, sold them anyway
#10I 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…
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.
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).