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Powershift transmission woes haunt Ford


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13 hours ago, NYinTex said:

All cars have design decisions that weigh cost against safety, cost against convenience, cost against luxury, etc.    Of course the pinto could have been designed to be safer... would $0.11 have "fixed' the "problem"? I am doubtful.  Maybe it was an 0.11 part, but what other design and build issues would there have been?   Design is more complicated than to simply say "an $.11 item would have stopped the Pintos from blowing up".  That doesn't sound plausible to me. 

 

49 minutes ago, 92merc said:

The one story I saw was that Ford had considered gas tanks with bladders in them for puncture resisting.  I thought the cost was closer to $5 at the time.

The part itself was approximately $1 (plastic shield), but the design and tooling for production was already completed...
https://www.autonews.com/article/20030616/SUB/306160770/lee-iacocca-s-pinto-a-fiery-failure

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1 hour ago, ausrutherford said:

Every company screws up from time to time for they are made of people. Yet, people thinks companies should be infallible for some reason...

It’s not the mistake. It’s the resolution that counts. A mistake that was just an oversight or a design flaw is one thing. Knowing that a problem exists and proceeding without change then trying to cover it up is pure negligence. 

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Ford has spent years rebuilding reliability with Focus, Escape and Fiesta to ruin everything with Powershift and get back to square one.  It seems like a cycle that has no end.  They build a reliable car, but it always seems like a catastrophe happens for reliability to be over. The Escort was a great car for three decades, but everything was ruined by the poorly made fifth generation.  They did the Focus as a fresh start, and now it was hit by the Powershift.  Taurus managed to stay ahead of the Japanese cars in the 80s, but somehow ruined it in the 90s, discontinued it once and now again is out of lineup.  Something is wrong and lingers on American brands that can not follow Toyota and Honda. 

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1 hour ago, silvrsvt said:

The Escape never had the powershift transmission....

 

Escape/Kuga being out of the powershift's problems is a relief.  I did not know it used the 6F35!  I wonder if Ford was using the 6F35 in Focus and Fiesta instead of Powershift would have been a better choice.  Here in Brazil they replaced the Powershift with the 6F15 and it's very good!

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On 7/12/2019 at 8:07 PM, fuzzymoomoo said:

You can't honestly sit there with a straight face and say it wouldn't have been better than the PowerShift 

 

On 7/13/2019 at 3:12 AM, jpd80 said:

As someone who has driven the before and after with a 2.0 DI Powershift Focus and a 1.5 EB 6F35 Focus, the difference is night an day, the 6F35 may have issues but I bet way more customers could live with it. Who knows, if Ford had doubled down on 6F35 instead of Powershift, maybe a lot of the converter issues could have been cured on the run...

Reliability wise it would have been enough better to not have this fiasco, maybe. But 1.5 Ecoboost is a completely different beast than the 2.0 N/A. MPG loss with 6f35 paired to 2.0 would put Focus with no real advantage over the competition and when DPoS6 is right, it "works" better with the 2.0's output than a standard slushbox would. Drive a 2wd Ecosport and a Focus back to back, ignoring the obvious differences in chassis. Their weights are essentially the same. JPD the fault is not with the converter itself, it is with the way that they use it to smooth the inherent roughness of a FWD 4 banger's power impulses. I am in no way defending the DPoS6, but 6F35 was not the answer. 

Forgot to add, that Friday, Ford essentially expanded 14M01 to include up to MY17.

Edited by YT90SC
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On 7/16/2019 at 3:37 AM, YT90SC said:

 

Reliability wise it would have been enough better to not have this fiasco, maybe. But 1.5 Ecoboost is a completely different beast than the 2.0 N/A. MPG loss with 6f35 paired to 2.0 would put Focus with no real advantage over the competition and when DPoS6 is right, it "works" better with the 2.0's output than a standard slushbox would. Drive a 2wd Ecosport and a Focus back to back, ignoring the obvious differences in chassis. Their weights are essentially the same. JPD the fault is not with the converter itself, it is with the way that they use it to smooth the inherent roughness of a FWD 4 banger's power impulses. I am in no way defending the DPoS6, but 6F35 was not the answer. 

Forgot to add, that Friday, Ford essentially expanded 14M01 to include up to MY17.

Thanks and appreciate your insight on this issue with 6F35 it sounds like a mixture of design flaws with control body and software, whatever they did with 1.5EB/ 6F35 worked much better for sure and new 1.5 1-3 EB and 8AT feels even better 

 

no doubt Ford was convinced by Getrag that a dry clutch would work but not addressing issues earlier just made things worse, had the tune on the PS started out with the set up used on the 2015 correction, maybe Ford would have been in a better position,  even going through clutches quicker would have been preferable to today’s fiasco

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On ‎7‎/‎14‎/‎2019 at 11:52 AM, twintornados said:

 

The part itself was approximately $1 (plastic shield), but the design and tooling for production was already completed...
https://www.autonews.com/article/20030616/SUB/306160770/lee-iacocca-s-pinto-a-fiery-failure 

no doubt the issues arising from the pinto rear-end collisions were horrible.  But the article you cite and most others are hyperbole.  Go back and read it again.  All the claims are referencing an acknowledged  "left-wing" magazine (their words, not mine).  "... according to Mother Jones.',  "... the magazine said...',  "...Mother Jones asserted.', etc.  Be careful.  Don't believe the hype.  There is too much BS out there propagated by biased people or organizations.  We need to focus on facts for the conversations to be relevant. 

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6 hours ago, NYinTex said:

no doubt the issues arising from the pinto rear-end collisions were horrible.  But the article you cite and most others are hyperbole.  Go back and read it again.  All the claims are referencing an acknowledged  "left-wing" magazine (their words, not mine).  "... according to Mother Jones.',  "... the magazine said...',  "...Mother Jones asserted.', etc.  Be careful.  Don't believe the hype.  There is too much BS out there propagated by biased people or organizations.  We need to focus on facts for the conversations to be relevant. 

Oh I saw it....hyberbole or not, it gives a synopsis of what transpired...I am no fan of left or right wing bias, but sometimes, you gotta "run what you brung"....the fact is clear, the damage was greater to the nameplate (Pinto) than it was to Ford....

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Now the government is involved, https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2019/07/16/ford-fiesta-focus-transmission-markey-blumenthal/1741390001/ there should be some nice fines. and settlements. Apparently the malfunction light on the 2015 was a compromise with NHTSA. I'm sure this will all be cheaper though than just putting the standard 6 speed auto in the updated one.?  When are Ford/Domestics going to realize that you don't save money by making things cheap. 

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59 minutes ago, jasonj80 said:

Now the government is involved, https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2019/07/16/ford-fiesta-focus-transmission-markey-blumenthal/1741390001/ there should be some nice fines. and settlements. Apparently the malfunction light on the 2015 was a compromise with NHTSA. I'm sure this will all be cheaper though than just putting the standard 6 speed auto in the updated one.?  When are Ford/Domestics going to realize that you don't save money by making things cheap. 

Blumenthal?!?!
Image result for laughing

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10 hours ago, NYinTex said:

no doubt the issues arising from the pinto rear-end collisions were horrible.  But the article you cite and most others are hyperbole.  Go back and read it again.  All the claims are referencing an acknowledged  "left-wing" magazine (their words, not mine).  "... according to Mother Jones.',  "... the magazine said...',  "...Mother Jones asserted.', etc.  Be careful.  Don't believe the hype.  There is too much BS out there propagated by biased people or organizations.  We need to focus on facts for the conversations to be relevant. 

The Mother Jones article that got the entire ball rolling is not factual. It overstated the number of Pinto fire-related deaths, and completely mischaracterized the notorious memo. The memo had NOTHING to do with the Pinto. It was simply a cost-benefit analysis of possible federal regulations that had been requested by the federal government! That is why the judge in the Grimshaw case refused to allow the plaintiffs to enter it as evidence.

If I recall correctly, the fuel-tank bladder that Ford's critics repeatedly refer to was not used on any production vehicle - certainly not one within the reach of most buyers of that time. So Ford not equipping the Pinto with it was hardly egregious.

The bottom line is that the Pinto was no more dangerous than other small cars of its era. A good starting point is the Rutgers Law Review article, "The Myth of the Pinto Case," from 1991. An analysis of actual accident data  shows that the Pinto's record for fire-related deaths was not out of line with other small cars of that era. It's overall safety record (meaning, all types of accidents, not just those that involved fire) was actually better than average compared to other small cars.

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52 minutes ago, akirby said:

50 injuries?   I call BS on that one.   This is not a safety issue and the government shouldn't be involved.

Doing so would no doubt strengthen the case of people suing Ford.

When Honda and Acura automatic transmissions on V-6 equipped vehicles were failing regularly in the early 2000s, the failure was often sudden, and occurred while the vehicle was in motion. The vehicle dramatically lost speed as a result. Needless to say, this could be quite scary on a limited-access highway. But the government never characterized the defect as a safety issue, to the best of my knowledge.

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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....

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5 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....

Free fix until July 19th. Get it in before parts go on back order. 

 

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2019/07/18/ford-focus-dps-6-transmission-fiesta/1766990001/

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2 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

Free fix until July 19th. Get it in before parts go on back order. 

 

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2019/07/18/ford-focus-dps-6-transmission-fiesta/1766990001/

Thank you for that. She has an appointment next Wednesday since that was the first day they could get her in at the dealership. Hopefully,  they will honor this.

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1 hour ago, 351cid said:

Thank you for that. She has an appointment next Wednesday since that was the first day they could get her in at the dealership. Hopefully,  they will honor this.

They have to, the press has shined a light on Ford's piss poor support of owners,
this might work out better than hoped for your daughter and other PS owners

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On 7/14/2019 at 3:18 PM, fordtech1 said:

It’s not the mistake. It’s the resolution that counts. A mistake that was just an oversight or a design flaw is one thing. Knowing that a problem exists and proceeding without change then trying to cover it up is pure negligence. 

I still can not get over how lightly GM got off considering the number of deaths and serious injuries attributed to the ignition switch fiasco !

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6 minutes ago, theoldwizard said:

I still can not get over how lightly GM got off considering the number of deaths and serious injuries attributed to the ignition switch fiasco !

Worse than that, GM turned it into a massive selling opportunity and actually came out smelling like roses.
After that, automakers just copied what GM did and used it to talk to customers and sell new vehicles.

So wouldn't this be a great opportunity for Ford to do the same and offer Focus/Fiesta owners a great
lease on say, a new Mondeo SE or an Ecosport?

Edited by jpd80
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3 hours ago, 351cid said:

Thank you for that. She has an appointment next Wednesday since that was the first day they could get her in at the dealership. Hopefully,  they will honor this.

Go to the dealer today and get it documented. Just show up.

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