Ford's Dual-Clutch Transmission Continues To Be A Disaster

Status
Not open for further replies.
I rented a Ford Focus hatchback and DCT transmission was terrible. I even posted a thread on BITOG about the car.

My rental car only had 3500 miles and trans was shuddering badly when accelerating from a complete stop.
 
A dry clutch DCT is acceptable for a commercial heavy truck, but not refined enough for a pass car market accustomed to torque converter transmissions. In addition to that, it appears Ford has some specific issues with quality and variability of certain parts.

If you read the detail history, it is a classic example of a development program that was not making the timing target milestones and management said shoot the engineers and ship the product.
 
The 'executives' who rushed this DCT to market knowing it had problems should be forced to give back their bonuses....maybe even their salaries.....same thing with Boeing.....
 
Of course they'd go back to a real automatic torque converter after they stop selling them over here
smirk2.gif


All they had to do was replace the DCT with a torque converter automatic.

I also think the EPA should dock them 10 mpg as a penalty. This would not apply to the manual cars, of course.
 
Originally Posted by Mr Nice
I rented a Ford Focus hatchback and DCT transmission was terrible. I even posted a thread on BITOG about the car.

My rental car only had 3500 miles and trans was shuddering badly when accelerating from a complete stop.


I rented one as well. Kept thinking the whole time "who buys this?". Guess it takes a bit to show up.
 
My wife and I bought a brand new 2015 Ford Focus Titanium with that DCT for her 1K miles per week driving to her job. 90% of her driving was highway driving. But still, the clutches on the thing chattered horribly starting a 40K miles. Then later, it seemed like it would miss gears on an upshift and end up in neutral. The car wouldn't over rev, but it just stalled out as if the throttle had closed. Clutch chatter is annoying as heck, but that "stalling" situation was dangerous!

We sold it at 3 years old and 70k miles, 2 years earlier than we had planned. Too bad for the car. With the exception of that transmission there was nothing at all wrong with that car. We liked it and it was perfect for our needs, except for that [censored] transmission.


Scott
 
What they did WAS wrong, up to 2016. For 2017 and newer, it has been fixed. The 2017 model trans has a great record so far. The old problems don't "continue" like the link says, This is actually fake news.
 
Originally Posted by bbhero
Aren't the wet dual clutch syetems way more reliable than the dry dual clutch syetems ?


Wet clutch allows more slip when taking off so they are much smoother. VW uses that in 90% of their automatics and have pretty much perfected it. The only downside is 40,000 mile fluid changes. Their cars with dry clutch have no fluid change requirements.
 
Originally Posted by gfh77665
What they did WAS wrong, up to 2016. For 2017 and newer, it has been fixed. The 2017 model trans has a great record so far. The old problems don't "continue" like the link says, This is actually fake news.


Yes they do. The updated clutch packs still fail and it's pretty typical to see them fail under 50K miles per clutch pack.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by gfh77665
What they did WAS wrong, up to 2016. For 2017 and newer, it has been fixed. The 2017 model trans has a great record so far. The old problems don't "continue" like the link says, This is actually fake news.


Negative, we sell just as many on the 17+ as the prior models. They use the same parts.
 
Originally Posted by gfh77665
Originally Posted by Pew

Yes they do. The updated clutch packs still fail and it's pretty typical to see them fail under 50K miles per clutch pack.


Incorrect. 2017+ DCT's are great. See for yourself:

https://www.carcomplaints.com/Ford/Fiesta/


I'm willing to bet the "complains" from that website is less for the newer cars because the chances of them being under the [extended] warranty is greater than a newer year, who is out of warranty by age and/or mileage. Go on the focusfanatics forums and see for yourself. They still use the same transmission, the same clutch packs, the same issues, the same garbage. There's plenty of threads with the latest model year still having the same issues.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by bdcardinal

Negative, we sell just as many on the 17+ as the prior models. They use the same parts.


Under court order, Ford HAD to give extended warranty on the 2016's and back. The court did not make Ford extend to the 2017's+.

Why? Under court scrutiny, the DCT was improved for 2017 and up.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top