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Powershift transmission woes haunt Ford


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1 hour ago, akirby said:

Sounds like they're going to announce an extended warranty today, which they should have done years ago.  They did the TCM already.

They actually did extend the warranty an additional seven years for our 2012 Focus.  That expired last year.  We've had minimal shifting problems on ours (living in a rural area with less shifting helps) so I haven't worried about it.  I'm thinking now of having the seals and clutches replaced, mainly because this should help its already dismal resale value.

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14 hours ago, 351cid said:

Yesterday, my daughter's 14 Focus stopped shifting.  It started not wanting to shift out of 2nd, but now will not even attempt to shift out of first.

This is after she just dropped $1000 having the electric steering rack replaced.

Another soured customer....

TCM (Which is 95% of "shifting issues") is covered under 14M02 for 10 years or 150k miles. This DOES NOT cover hard part issues in the trans itself which are rare. 

Again, for those in the back not listening:

Shudder=Clutch.

Neutrals and the majority of other "shift issues" = TCM.   

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48 minutes ago, mackinaw said:

They actually did extend the warranty an additional seven years for our 2012 Focus.  That expired last year.  We've had minimal shifting problems on ours (living in a rural area with less shifting helps) so I haven't worried about it.  I'm thinking now of having the seals and clutches replaced, mainly because this should help its already dismal resale value.

I'm averaging right around $1300 for most out of warranty clutch replacements. You more than likely won't get that back in resale. 

Edited by YT90SC
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2 hours ago, YT90SC said:

 You more than likely won't get that back in resale. 

If you wanted resale in a small car you should have bought a Corolla or Civic to begin with.  It is actually insane what someone will pay for one with 150K or even 200K on them.

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A few years ago or so, I put on this forum that the Focus transmission problems were going to seriously damage Ford's reputation and cause many buyers, most of which are first time buyers to swear off Ford for good. Someone, I forget who posted in response, "Drama much?"

Well... here you go. 

Read the articles and see. 

It is simply not just the people who bought the car that got burned, its also those who bought the car second hand, and between these people many were first time buyers (young) who will now never buy Ford again. At least if I got burned by this, I'd have other Fords I owned that I liked and may still consider Ford based on that. But these kids, will trash Ford to their friends too and they won't buy them either. 

Henry Ford was pretty explicit on how he viewed reputation. (You cant build a reputation based on something you say you're going to do.)

It takes may years to build confidence in your product and one bad experience to lose it. Multiply this over seven years averaging 200,000 cars a year or so and all the used car experiences and that's a lot of angry people who are advising everyone they know to stay away from Ford.

So drama much? 

Yes, I'd say so.

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8 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

I'm assuming the choice not to go to the 6F35 was driven mostly by $$$, but I really wonder what the difference was. 

In the end, it would have been better if Ford had just used the 6F35, the comparable GM version of the JV box was used in
the Chevrolet Cruze with 1.4 I-4T and the 1.8 I-4, giving similar fuel economy figures as the Focus (Cruze was ~200 lb lighter).
even with the known problems associated with 6F35, it would have been a lot less problematic.(sorry for the pun.:)

Edited by jpd80
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1 hour ago, mackinaw said:

I will if Ford pays for it, which looks like is going to happen.

They're most likely NOT going to extend to cover your car if it is out on miles or time for the 7 years or 100k miles that FSA 14M01 covered. IF they do, you will still have to be diagnosed and repaired as per Ford's already established procedures. In other words, it has to go through the online guided routine and repaired as per TSB 16-0109/14M01. IF the seals are not leaking and the clutch doesn't fail the shudder test, you don't get parts replacement. 

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40 minutes ago, YT90SC said:

They're most likely NOT going to extend to cover your car if it is out on miles or time for the 7 years or 100k miles that FSA 14M01 covered. IF they do, you will still have to be diagnosed and repaired as per Ford's already established procedures. In other words, it has to go through the online guided routine and repaired as per TSB 16-0109/14M01. IF the seals are not leaking and the clutch doesn't fail the shudder test, you don't get parts replacement. 

But isn't the test flawed? We were told on multiple occasions that our horrible shuddering issues, which often happened after driving for some time, weren't meeting the guidelines. Of course that does assume that the tech actually did the work. Sometimes I wondered why I didn't press the issue.

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46 minutes ago, YT90SC said:

They're most likely NOT going to extend to cover your car if it is out on miles or time for the 7 years or 100k miles that FSA 14M01 covered. IF they do, you will still have to be diagnosed and repaired as per Ford's already established procedures. In other words, it has to go through the online guided routine and repaired as per TSB 16-0109/14M01. IF the seals are not leaking and the clutch doesn't fail the shudder test, you don't get parts replacement. 

See this:

"In the July 12 memo, Ford says dealerships should "arrange to diagnose the vehicle and repair as necessary." The fixes can be applied to 2011-17 models, many of which are out of warranty. Previous class-action lawsuits have covered 2011-16 models with transmissions that customers complained would shudder, jerk and hesitate."

https://www.autonews.com/regulation-safety/ford-tells-us-dealers-repair-small-car-transmissions-free

Edited by mackinaw
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18 hours ago, mybkvu said:

But isn't the test flawed? We were told on multiple occasions that our horrible shuddering issues, which often happened after driving for some time, weren't meeting the guidelines. Of course that does assume that the tech actually did the work. Sometimes I wondered why I didn't press the issue.

The test is NOT flawed. Any shudder recording of less than 250 RPM passes. Any recording 250 rpm or over, it fails and gets a clutch. The time time given to the technician is flawed. It pays .6 of an hour to the tech for all this: 

Get the car into the bay, verify warranty status, check for any new TSBs or other updated information related to it, connect a finicky diagnostic system, check for any codes that may relate to the shudder, perform the adaptive relearn on the clutch, test drive and record the shudder readings, and do the calculations for the shudder readings. If it passes, the job is done. If it doesn't, then *for no more pay* the technician must upload the data to Ford,  then complete the required online (if Ford's website works) diagnostic form to get a required Repair Validation Code, or RVC, because Ford does not trust the word or competence of technicians. No RVC and the clutch replacement will not be paid for by Ford. Fudge the numbers or break the *VERY* specific criteria to record the shudder and the claim can and will be bounced by Ford even after the repair is done.

If it was for any other non shudder/non TCM reason, the tech would get 1.0 hour *without* being chained to the upload and online RVC process. 

Again, the test is fine. I get over 90% failure rate even with the lack of time given to do the whole procedure.    

18 hours ago, mackinaw said:

See this:

"In the July 12 memo, Ford says dealerships should "arrange to diagnose the vehicle and repair as necessary." The fixes can be applied to 2011-17 models, many of which are out of warranty. Previous class-action lawsuits have covered 2011-16 models with transmissions that customers complained would shudder, jerk and hesitate."

https://www.autonews.com/regulation-safety/ford-tells-us-dealers-repair-small-car-transmissions-free

Their interpretation of the memo is wrong. The memo says that the vehicle MUST be repaired as per established procedures i.e. TSB 16-0109, the online guided routine in WSM section 307-01. Customer Resource Center has to be contacted for any after warranty assistance. Contacting CRC rarely gets the entire job covered, rather, it will give a portion towards the repair, unless they radically change the policies in this instance. I wouldn't hold my breath. 

Let's suppose they do cover your car.  It HAS to be diagnosed as per the description I gave mybkvu above. If it can't hit the 250 RPM threshold or the seals are not leaking, you don't get a clutch, period. 

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On 7/3/2019 at 8:37 AM, Harley Lover said:

It's completely believable (unfortunately) - and Ford is not unique in this respect. There's not a single auto company that would do differently. Look at sainted Honda and their handling of the issue with their 1.5 turbo engine.

My boss had a then-new '06 Camry, and it had a transmission issue that drove him nuts. He researched that problem to death, and the consensus was that it was a design flaw in the transaxle itself. As he put it, Toyota's attitude was "it's broken, get used to it," and quite a few people were upset about it (both the problem and the attitude).

It doesn't seem to have made a dang bit of difference in their sales, though.

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38 minutes ago, SoonerLS said:

My boss had a then-new '06 Camry, and it had a transmission issue that drove him nuts. He researched that problem to death, and the consensus was that it was a design flaw in the transaxle itself. As he put it, Toyota's attitude was "it's broken, get used to it," and quite a few people were upset about it (both the problem and the attitude).

It doesn't seem to have made a dang bit of difference in their sales, though.

Every manufacturer has skeletons in the closet, try going a few rounds with ZF over a transmission problem,
that infuriating and presumptive German logic that says the customer is always wrong, our products have no faults.

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19 hours ago, YT90SC said:

The test is NOT flawed. Any shudder recording of less than 250 RPM passes. Any recording 250 rpm or over, it fails and gets a clutch. The time time given to the technician is flawed. It pays .6 of an hour to the tech for all this: 

Get the car into the bay, verify warranty status, check for any new TSBs or other updated information related to it, connect a finicky diagnostic system, check for any codes that may relate to the shudder, perform the adaptive relearn on the clutch, test drive and record the shudder readings, and do the calculations for the shudder readings. If it passes, the job is done. If it doesn't, then *for no more pay* the technician must upload the data to Ford,  then complete the required online (if Ford's website works) diagnostic form to get a required Repair Validation Code, or RVC, because Ford does not trust the word or competence of technicians. No RVC and the clutch replacement will not be paid for by Ford. Fudge the numbers or break the *VERY* specific criteria to record the shudder and the claim can and will be bounced by Ford even after the repair is done.

If it was for any other non shudder/non TCM reason, the tech would get 1.0 hour *without* being chained to the upload and online RVC process. 

Again, the test is fine. I get over 90% failure rate even with the lack of time given to do the whole procedure.    

Thanks YT90SC, the lack of sufficient time paid to the tech is the main reason I suggested it's flawed, though your point about not trusting their factory techs also wasn't completely lost on me. I did a lousy job of saying that by only mentioning how our shudder has always been much worse when the vehicle's hot, which isn't unique to our car. I also should have skipped any comment on the dealer's work, because I have no reason to believe nothing was done the couple of times we had it in for other reasons and I asked them to check it based on 14M01. 

I'm really just annoyed by this latest development. What knuckleheads would try to quietly offer a pseusdo-extended warranty for one week with no advance notice. I don't win lottos, and this was no exception. Just adds insult to injury for someone like me that has tried to patiently wait out a solution while living with the limitations. It's the wife's car and she still likes it, even if the TCM did scare the hell out of her on the expressway the day before it took a complete dump. And all in all, at 110k with one TCM, one seal replacement and cleaning (yeah, it was done early), I don't think it's been as bad as some make it out to be.

On a personal note, I sure hope you're appreciated at your dealership. What sounds like a high level of competence and commitment makes you one valuable "asset".

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On 7/20/2019 at 10:23 PM, jpd80 said:

Every manufacturer has skeletons in the closet, try going a few rounds with ZF over a transmission problem,
that infuriating and presumptive German logic that says the customer is always wrong, our products have no faults.

Getrag is no better. Hence some of the issues with DPS6. 

 

On 7/21/2019 at 11:45 AM, mybkvu said:

Thanks YT90SC, the lack of sufficient time paid to the tech is the main reason I suggested it's flawed, though your point about not trusting their factory techs also wasn't completely lost on me. I did a lousy job of saying that by only mentioning how our shudder has always been much worse when the vehicle's hot, which isn't unique to our car. I also should have skipped any comment on the dealer's work, because I have no reason to believe nothing was done the couple of times we had it in for other reasons and I asked them to check it based on 14M01. 

I'm really just annoyed by this latest development. What knuckleheads would try to quietly offer a pseusdo-extended warranty for one week with no advance notice. I don't win lottos, and this was no exception. Just adds insult to injury for someone like me that has tried to patiently wait out a solution while living with the limitations. It's the wife's car and she still likes it, even if the TCM did scare the hell out of her on the expressway the day before it took a complete dump. And all in all, at 110k with one TCM, one seal replacement and cleaning (yeah, it was done early), I don't think it's been as bad as some make it out to be.

On a personal note, I sure hope you're appreciated at your dealership. What sounds like a high level of competence and commitment makes you one valuable "asset".

Thanks. I'm not sure about that last sentence. IF a cigarette is a small cigar, well an asset is... LOL

They have made and are making changes that seem to help. The updated TCM is marked "Continental" and not "Ford" or "Getrag". The latest clutch and software seem to be less prone to issue. While I don't like doing more for less, at the end of the say it is maddening to know I cannot promise a lasting repair. Moreso to see so many people spend their hard earned money on a product that is so imperfect.

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Just found this thread after searching online for information on clutch warranty extension. I have a 2014 Focus with 65,000 miles. I am 10,000 miles into my 3rd clutch which were all replaced under warranty so far.

Shudder is starting again, but not yet to point where it would fail the test (I seem to get to about 15,000 miles when it gets really bad and qualifies for replacement) Called my dealer and my car is not a VIN number which was included in the 100,000 mile warranty extension a couple of years ago. The new memo from Ford to dealers only seems to extend the coverage to July 19th (which has obviously passed) My question is, was that just a memo to cover cars currently in the pipeline for service and Ford will be having a formal announcement of a warranty extension? Is there any additional news on this from Ford since the memo? 

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4 hours ago, YT90SC said:

Getrag is no better. Hence some of the issues with DPS6.

Birds of a feather I'd say...
Thankfully the JV with Getrag and the dreadful DPS6 now seems to be at an end with the closure of
Ford's  transmission plant in France, VW also having trouble with dry clutches so not just a Ford thing, 
dieselgate overshadowed a lot of new about that.

Getrag must have know that their gearbox had serious issues, regardless of whatever tune was applied to it,
I mean, they've used wet clutches for years because they work better and can take the load.

Edited by jpd80
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2 hours ago, jtbruns said:

Just found this thread after searching online for information on clutch warranty extension. I have a 2014 Focus with 65,000 miles. I am 10,000 miles into my 3rd clutch which were all replaced under warranty so far.

Shudder is starting again, but not yet to point where it would fail the test (I seem to get to about 15,000 miles when it gets really bad and qualifies for replacement) Called my dealer and my car is not a VIN number which was included in the 100,000 mile warranty extension a couple of years ago. The new memo from Ford to dealers only seems to extend the coverage to July 19th (which has obviously passed) My question is, was that just a memo to cover cars currently in the pipeline for service and Ford will be having a formal announcement of a warranty extension? Is there any additional news on this from Ford since the memo? 

I assumed that was a precursor to a formal warranty extension but haven’t seen anything yet.  Check with your dealer.

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4 hours ago, jtbruns said:

Just found this thread after searching online for information on clutch warranty extension. I have a 2014 Focus with 65,000 miles. I am 10,000 miles into my 3rd clutch which were all replaced under warranty so far.

Shudder is starting again, but not yet to point where it would fail the test (I seem to get to about 15,000 miles when it gets really bad and qualifies for replacement) Called my dealer and my car is not a VIN number which was included in the 100,000 mile warranty extension a couple of years ago. The new memo from Ford to dealers only seems to extend the coverage to July 19th (which has obviously passed) My question is, was that just a memo to cover cars currently in the pipeline for service and Ford will be having a formal announcement of a warranty extension? Is there any additional news on this from Ford since the memo? 

There is nothing official yet. There was *supposed to* be an announcement Friday. There was none. If you can, contact your dealer and see if they would be willing to contact CRC for you and see what can be done. As of today, there just isn't any information. 

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