New Twist: Focus Owner Blames Ford For His Debt

Mark DaGraca had five clutch replacements on his 2016 Ford Focus and finally gave up.

Now he has a bigger monthly payment on a car loan that has ballooned in size.

“I ultimately had to trade the car in because it was not safe,” he said Dec. 9. “Just wanted to let you know that when I got my Focus, the dealership in Haverhill, Massachusetts, told me Ford was having a deal on Focus cars — a 1.9% interest rate on those cars only, regardless of credit. So, because of that, we bought the car. Within 16,000 miles, my car needed a new transmission. Every attempt with Ford to get this car taken back or made right was met with, ‘You don’t qualify for anything.’ Finally, I bought a new Ford Escape last month because I had to drive (the Focus a few blocks) home one day in reverse because it would not drive forward.”

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USNA1999 - 12/30/2019 12:27:12 PM

+3 Boost

Exactly, FORD quality #1. If it wasn’t for their trucks this would be another Oldsmobile/ Buick in the making.

MDarringer - 12/30/2019 1:30:19 PM

-2 Boost

My question is given how egregiously bad the PowerShit was, how did it get into production? Was it like VW? "Hey let's build them and work out the engineering later."

TomM - 12/30/2019 2:27:31 PM

+2 Boost

Actually over the years - Ford has had some really really bad transmissions. THe E40D transmission came out using Bushings to support the Main Shaft - instead of Bearings - a FATAL flaw. Eventually the Bushings wore so much that it forced the Hard parts in the Transmission to fail explosively - often coming out of the trans through the case. Ford had to issue a new set of internal hard parts that used Bearings to support the mainshaft to fix the problem - but the parts were almost the price of a new Transmission not including labor.

THis Powershift was a Dual Clutch DRY Transmission - instead of using wet clutches like most others did. And apparently it simply was not properly tested for longevity - because these things constantly came apart. Eventually FORD figured out the problem but it took ALmost decade to re-engineer it. It should never have been released.

I note even the AODE - which could last long on all those Police Cars - came with an Aluminum Valve body bore for the Lock up valve - and that caused a Torque Converter "CHUGGLE" that they never really fixed -what they did is issue a new Fluid that had friction modification to minimize the chuggle. What they really needed was a Steel bore for the valve.

MDarringer - 12/30/2019 11:32:59 AM

-2 Boost

Let's assume that through no fault of the owner, this Focus burned through two and was in for the 3rd clutch. At that stage it would be a red flag and we would involve Ford at that point because something is not normal. We typically don't put it on the customer to contact Ford when there is a dispute between what we can do and what the customer wants covered.

Why were five clutched burned through? Was it all caused by defect? #Unlikely Could it have been caused by a two-foot driver that brakes with the left foot and constantly rides the brake pedal? #CouldBe Something is fishy here because even for these troublesome cars, 5 clutches is far far out of the norm.

From a dealer perspective, Ford has covered a lot of repair costs on these faulty transmissions. And as the article says, the 2015+ models are dramatically more reliable. I'm not saying this lets Ford off the hook, but sometimes you get an egregiously bad car and you just have to take the loss. I'll also say that the pre-2015 cars didn't all have issues. It was hit and miss but large enough that a lawsuit got traction.

I hate dual clutch transmissions across the board and the PowerShit was a headache for dealers. The new 8 speed--so far--is lovely.

USNA1999 - 12/30/2019 3:47:26 PM

+2 Boost

LOL, exactly!