FORD Quietly Replacing FIESTA Transmissions on owner Complaints

March 4th, 2011

The new Ford Fiesta has slowly gained converts among Americans, hitting a high in sales last month. But Ford’s now facing a growing number of complaints about the Fiesta’s new dual-clutch automatic transmission set to go into other Ford models as well.

None of the complaints suggest a safety problem which would force Ford to do a recall, and Ford has been agressive about responding to the complaints on Twitter and elsewhere. But the reports suggest a real issue with the Fiesta, one that could dent Ford’s recently burnished quality reputation.

One of the Fiesta’s calling cards is fuel economy of up to 40 mpg on the highway, made possible by the Powershift six-speed automatic transmission built at a Ford-Gertrag joint venture in Mexico. The all-new Powershift is essentially two three-speed manual transmissions merged and shifted electrically with two clutches. Using electrical controls rather than traditional hydraulics helps the transmission boost the fuel economy of the Fiesta by 10%, and Ford will use it on the upcoming Focus as well.
Yet since its launch last year, a sizable number of consumers have reported problems with the Powershift, both online and to U.S. auto safety regulators, ranging from hard shifts at speed to not engaging any gear. Several have reported having to get new transmissions, and there’s at least two reports of multiple transmission failures.

Ford has issued one repair bulletin for the Fiesta’s transmission to dealers, saying low voltage in the car’s electrical system could cause the transmission’s electronic controls to shut down or not allow the car to start at all. The fix? A software update for the transmission along with scraping paint away from underneath the battery’s ground screw for a better connection.

Many owners say that fix solved their problem, but others are still in line for brand-new transmissions.

Ford says only a small number of transmissions have been replaced, in part to diagnose what was causing them to fail, and that the low-voltage issue was an early production issue that’s since been fixed. That could explain it, although several of the complaints we found were made last month. American automakers don’t get the benefit of the doubt from consumers on quality, and given how much Ford has riding on the Fiesta and the new Powershift, its fixes need to work.

Article taken from DRIVING WITH THE DUTCHMAN

THX for sharing ^^

Good to know the transmission is a global issue.

The news is out, so we cant say Ford quietly replacing it. At least they acknowledged the issue and are doing something about it.

One question, what do they mean by hard shifts at speed? Our fiesta generally have to accelerate quite hard and the feeling is that the shifts are not as silky smooth. The tachometer goes up to anwyhere between 3-4 on moderate acceleration from standstill whereas on heavy throttle the tacho can go up to 5. When I sat in my friend's golf (non-GTI) lastweek, I can feel being thrown backwards a little bit while sitted on the passenger front seat but I hardly notice any shifts occuring. Of course the cabin is much more well insulated than ours so that you don't really hear any engine noise and of course we can buy two fiesta with the price

how la to compare a 120ps NA engine to a 160ps twincharge engine

Here,thanks for sharing.