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DCT Complaints Thread

20K views 128 replies 36 participants last post by  BetaDnB 
#1 ·
Do it here. Stop flooding threads that have nothing to do with DCT or transmissions in general with the complaints. We all know a lot of you have problems without it being brought up everywhere, every second, of every day.
 
#3 ·
The irony of a yet another thread complaining about all the threads of complaints [poke]

I do agree, though, the DCT threads are all over. But same with MFT threads, despite there being an official sticky thread on the topic. So I'm not sure if this will help, but I agree with the idea, BetaDnB.
 
#5 ·
Maybe you missed it. This isn't a thread complaining about complaint threads. This is a thread for people to complain about their DCTs instead of flooding threads that have nothing to do with DCT.
 
#4 ·
I'd say it would be better if the mods would merge all the DCT complaining threads into a single one. And make it "sticky" so no one say "I didn't see it". [deviltail]
 
#6 ·
People should be complaining to their dealer where the problems are likely to get resolved. Complaining on a forum just gets you a lot of "yeah mine does that too" or "my DCT is perfect and I love it" responses.

I think what we really need here is a DCT FAQ and a list of known problems/work-arounds/TSB's etc... You know, useful stuff.
 
#10 ·
Thank you.

Now maybe they will get out of other threads that have nothing to do with transmissions at all much their bitching about the DCT.

I do have this to add:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-clutch_transmission

Seriously, I'm using Wikipedia so you have a general idea of how these transmissions even work before anyone comes and [:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)] about it.

DCTs do not have torque converters. That is why among other reasons, they will never be as smooth as traditional automatics.

Which isn't really a bad thing.

That sluggish nature at low speeds? Get used to it. THATS EVERY DCT OR SMG EVER MADE.

If the DSG in VWs GTI still acts funny at low speeds, why would I expect Fords Powershift to fare much better?

I can understand if you have genuine issues with it and need service help, but enough with the "oh its not smooth, oh its bad at low speeds, or its jittery, oh its this or that or whatever else"

Your fault if you didn't properly understand what you paid money for.
 
#16 ·
Your fault if you didn't properly understand what you paid money for.
I think that's being a bit harsh. Let's be honest here: to most people, there are automatics and there are manuals. Heck, I'd bet that many people don't even really understand what a transmission even does, let alone relatively new tech like a DCT. Does that mean that they shouldn't drive cars? It's not as if Ford draws particular attention to the different characteristics of a DCT when selling the car to you.

As for myself, I intentionally testdrove the DCT having read various consumer reviews complaining about the transmission. During the testdrive, I decided up front that I could live with the quirks. It's only been a few weeks, but so far I'm generally fine with its behavior.

I tend to notice the hesitation much more in reverse. That will take some getting used to. Also, the car seems to idle a bit roughly. Not sure if that is a tranny or just plain engine issue.
 
#20 ·
Your fault if you didn't properly understand what you paid money for.
That's a bit harsch indeed. In order to fully understand what I have paid for, it has to be fully understood by the sales people in order to them to explain it to me before I put my signature at the bottom on the sales act. Seriously, if my salesman would have told me all the quirks and behavior of the DCT, I would have purchased another car.

And oh, yeah, I did test drive twice. One time I test drove it by doing my comute back and forth. No problems. I test drove it another time on the highway, again no noticable weird behavior.

Back in october 2011 there wasnt as much information about the DCT floating around for the regular Joe that I am. The damm thing was sold to me as an automatic. I was expecting the car to behave like an automatic. Hell, the sales people were probably less informed than some of you guys.

I now understand that DCT's are becomming a new trend, so, my next car will probably be equiped by such a ''feature''. Hopefully, the next one will benefit from what Ford is going tru right now. My previous car had a CVT with a shifttronic feature. The thing was solid, smooth and deliverd as expercted. I'm NOT bashing Ford or ALL of the Focus's around. Mine isnt just going well and is a source of frustration and worryness. It's hard to swallow when you shed 29K for a car that doesnt deliver.

Oh and by the way, I did the air filter swap last weekend. Didnt see any change in the behavior of the car. Weather is slowly getting fresher and cooler, so the car boggs less and seems to better perform in cool weather. DCT affected by heat/cool...I think not. It must be sensor related or something else. My uneducated 2 cents about my issues: It looks like the trottle message from the gaz pedal doesnt go correclty to the engine.

We'll see. I'll be happy to report back when someone at Ford or my dealer finds whatever is wrong with Gertrude.

/end rant
 
#11 ·
What is DCT? Kidding, I kid.

I've never had a problem with mine and the way this thread is going, everyone, myself included, putting their 0.02 in the only thing that won't show up in this thread is people actually complaining about their DCT. Perhaps they are saving the complaints for other unrelated threads?
 
#12 ·
I like your style. Hopefully with the word "complaint" in the thread topic it will still show up in searches. [race]
 
#14 ·
Complaints about the DCT in a thread about complaints on the DCT.

My department of redundancy department is bristling in anticipation.
 
#19 ·
When we bought our first Focus a year ago, I'd done a considerable amount of research on the car in general and the DCT in particular including a lot of time reading the threads that were active here on the subject at the time. Our salesman went to great lengths to explain the DCT and and during out 30 mile test drive spent about ten minutes going over specific differences from a normal automatic. Then, when we went back last April to buy our second Focus, he gave me the same speech word for word.

Not everyone has the time to invest in the research or the car experience to understand it if they did. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a salesman who is as technically sharp and as concerned about the customer being happy as we did. More importantly, not everyone cares about the differences until something goes wrong. Then they come here.

While we've been fortunate not to experience any problems with our DCTs, that doesn't mean that there aren't people whose transmissions have real problems. That much should be clear to anyone who has been here for any length of time. Ford knows this and continues to work on the issues. They've got too much invested in the DCT not to.

The people who have problems need a place to go to bring up their issues rather than starting a thousand new threads about it. If we have one place for them to do so, it's more likely Ford won't miss seeing it.

I think the idea of this thread, and having it as a sticky, are good ones. If I were to change anything about it, I would have named it:

"The Focus Automatic Transmission (DCT) Problem/Complaint/Issue/Question/Update Thread"

That way nobody could miss it.
 
#24 ·
So you're complaining about people writing on unrelated threads.... I get that. But you took the time to write on my thread that has the word "problems" in the title about how I shouldn't share my story in a new thread of my own. I think it's safe to assume people who don't always use this forum would figure a new thread would be seen by people and an old thread wouldn't. Plus who wants to sift through 99 pages of all sorts of different conversations when they can start their own? I don't see you complaining about the people who write new "my Sync doesn't work" threads. There are plenty of those.

Almost everyone who has posted on this thread is LUCKY enough to have their BIGGEST problem be that it's annoying to hear about the DCT issues. Just be happy that you don't have any. I mean it's not easy for some of us to get help, and this forum has helped a lot of people get somewhere. So if you are so happy with your car and don't want to know anymore about the real transmission problems how about this? DON'T READ ANY threads that say anything about "problems" "transmissions" etc... and you won't have to be annoyed.

It's so disheartening that you take it to a nasty level. You can say what you want... but my car DOES have a problem and the clutch IS being replaced after one year of ownership and only 12k miles. So seriously, have respect for people and some compassion... jeez.
 
#27 ·
I would have to wonder how its possible on a transmission with a 150k service interval that you managed to need a new twin disk clutch pack in less than 12k miles. That was a service life of 8% of the initial estimate provided. With my old car which was a normal manual transmission with 191k miles on it when I bought it and unknown wear on the clutch (it had grabbed good from day one until after I stopped driving it for my new Focus), I had put over 44000 miles on it under all sorts of driving conditions including heavy stop and go traffic and I never needed to replace the clutch. I was considering it as a precaution since the state was unknown, but I got rid of the car before it was necessary.

If a computer is shifting the gearbox and the programming was correct it would have a far smaller chance of constantly slipping the clutch or grinding gears than a human would. However that being said one can't discount the possibility of it being a badly built unit, or perhaps there was a leaky seal in the gearbox that finally destroyed the clutch pack. Oil will kill the clutch disks easily.

You say you were frightened by a "roll back" which is a characteristic of all manual transmissions when you don't give it enough throttle to over come gravity and it rolls backwards briefly before moving forward. That should not have been a surprise had the dealer informed you truthfully that the automatic in this car was different from the one in your last car, but alas most are just interested in the sale no matter what.

Do you have a tendency to either left foot brake or creep up hills at 1-2 mph a lot? Those may cause issues with the car.

Yes I understand that Ford sells the car as an automatic and its your assumption that you should just drive it like any other car and not have any issues. I understand that its likely due to faulty mechanical components rather than driver error in many cases. I would just like to know how it was possible for a computer to be wrong so many times in 12000 miles that it would do more damage than even a moderately skilled driver with a normal clutch pedal/ normal manual gearbox.

At the end of the day there are many factors which influence the service life of components, from build tolerances to how they are used.

It would be annoying if not frustrating however if your concerns were being ignored/ falling on deaf ears. Its a good thing they are going to repair it under warranty if it was due to the car itself, but if its environmental then it may re-appear within 12000 miles.
 
#28 ·
For what it's worth, none of the four dealers I visited during my shopping said anything about the DCT, besides pointing out the manual shift feature.

Also, from my perspective, ALL of the DCT's goofiness will be forgiven if it continues to shift past 100,000 without any major problems. On the other hand, I will be spewing lightning and fireballs if it suffers a major failure prior to 50,000.
 
#33 ·
Now if the thread would just be used for it's intended purpose instead of to bitch about the thread itself, it would be more helpful.
 
#35 ·
In support of those with issues, take a look at all complaints received by the NHTSA. Each brand and model should have equal chance of being complained about there. Take a look at all the powertrain complaints for the Focus. It's more than most other cars' total complaints, and is a far greater percentage of total complaints than any other car at more than a third.

Looking through the actual powertrain complaints, I count roughly 70% of them specifically mention the typical DCT complaints you hear about on here; shuddering, bucking, lunging, poor shift quality, engine bogging down in turns, etc.

I ignored complaints about hill roll back since I'm on the side of that not being a case of poor implementation on Ford's part. It is what it is.

I noted the cars that were in their first model year for more direct comparison.

Notice the Veloster, also with a DCT, has negligible powertrain complaints.

Complaints
Total Powertrain
2011 Jetta 164 19 1MY
2012 Focus 153 56 1MY
2011 Cruze 143 30 1MY
2010 Mazda3 93 13 1MY
2012 Civic 58 13 1MY
2012 Cruze 55 9
2011 Elantra 40 3 1MY
2012 Jetta 40 5
2012 Veloster 40 3 1MY
2012 Elantra 33 5
2012 Mazda3 10 3 1MY w/ Skyactive

Sorry, formatting wasn't the same as when i was writing the post. The first number after each model name is total complaints and the second number is complaints specifically about the powertrain which of course includes the transmission.
 
#44 ·
You can correct me if I am wrong however, but the Veloster and the Focus are the only ones with the DCTs, not sure if the Jetta can be had with the DSG; I believe it only has the Tiptronic sport mode in the regular autobox

And for a lot of people the nuances of the DCT are not explained and for pretty much 99% of us on this forum this would probably be your first encounter with a SMG/DCT type transmission.
 
#38 ·
I've driven one CVT ever. It was my sister's Sentra about 3 years ago. I just found it odd. There were no shift point mimic. It was like an electric golf cart.
 
#40 ·
It's the lack of noticeable shift points that annoyed me. The constant revving and general drone was very odd
I agree. But google "cvt mimic shift point" and you'll see that most of the current CVTs seem to do this to improve "feel."

Car and Driver's 1st Drive review of the Accord says most of the traditional CVT complaints don't apply, you generally don't notice the CVT and it's finally one you can live with.

I'm not a CVT proponent, just sayin' don't complete count them out just yet.
 
#55 ·
I really wish Ford had come up with some better term for what they called the "trailer hitching feel". I'd wager that the majority of people will not have actually towed a trailer and would have a hard time relating that inertia/momentum loop to the jerk/shudder that they're experiencing.
 
#73 ·
Keep complaining - please

I do not know what Ford had in mind when they decided what to call it or what to disclose in advance to buyers. I looked at my window sticker and it reads “6-SPD AUTO TRANSMISSION” so officially they did not call it an “automatic”. I thought and believe most people would think “Auto” meant the car had a regular automatic transmission, you know the kind that uses the red stuff. Ford could have just told us up front it was not, kind of makes you wonder?

Well, shame on me for not picking up on Fords’ use of the word AUTO instead of AUTOMATIC and then grilling the sales person and running home to get on the internet to do hours of research to find out what exactly that meant. I am so stupid and such a lousy consumer. I deserve what I got, right? Of course Ford could have just told me up front, kind of makes you wonder?

The fact that I bought a car that has a transmission that is different from conventional automatic and acts differently is not a problem. Now I know what it is and I understand why it feels different when you take off from a stop. I think it is kind of a neat idea. It is different, it is special, and I like technology. A lot of the time it works very well. What I have a problem with is that a lot of the time it does not work very well, it jerks, it makes weird noises, it upshifts too soon and does not respond to throttle input and it leaves you with no power when you need to get out of the way because it will not downshift (unless you floor it and then it jerks more).

It works much better now but I was horrified when I first started driving it. I test drove it around the block before I bought it and I thought I may have noticed something but thought, no this is a brand new car. That and getting out of the Toyota Tundra I had been driving for the last 10 years I figured anything that small was going to feel weird for a while. I left the dealership around 6pm, went to the freeway to head home. Got off the freeway and then started driving around city streets in stop and go situations and experienced the jerking and shaking. I thought oh my gosh, the transmission is ready to tear apart in this thing.

I made plans to take it back to the dealer first thing in the morning. I pictured myself like the little old lady in the tire commercial throwing the tire through the window. And then thank goodness I found this forum. I found people who were complaining about their transmission, describing the symptoms they were experiencing and they were the same symptoms I was experiencing. I learned enough to know the transmission was probably not going to fall out onto the street and that I maybe I should try driving it for a while to see if it would get better. I did and it has.

So, reading other peoples complaints helped me greatly. I have complaints about the way my transmission works and I am going to complain about it and I am going to do it here. I will eventually go back to the dealer but for now I know the dealer does not know how to fix it because Ford had not figured out how to fix it. If someone has a problem with people complaining then avoid threads about complaints. But don’t complain about my complaining!
 
#77 ·
I do not know what Ford had in mind when they .... then avoid threads about complaints. But don’t complain about my complaining!
I am a defender of our DCT in this car. But, I am not 100% satisfied with it. I drove a manual for 13 years before I got my DCT Focus, so maybe I just miss my manual. Most of the time, it works great, but like alot of people note, this transmission is very quick to upshift. There are times when in my manual I would stay in 2nd or 3rd as I was approaching a corner so I could accelerate after turning. Our DCT tends to upshift through 2 gears in when coasting into a turn, then when you step on the gas, you're out of luck. Then, it takes a fine foot to know how far to press the accelerator to downshift one gear instead of two so it doesn't take over a second to get engagement again.

I haven't gotten 12B37 yet, so I'm not sure if this is still an issue. I also don't have SelectShift, which is probably my biggest regret in my car choice.

Alan
 
#74 ·
So far we've had debates about whether the idea of this thread was valid or not, we've had complaining about complaining and also complaining about complaining about complaining, and we've gone through our usual scholarly discussion or two of transmission theory, but has anyone posted an actual DCT complaint here yet? One that's not covered already in another thread of their own?

Maybe that's why people always start new threads when they have problems...
 
#75 ·
I've been thinking about how comical it is that I created this thread for a specific reason, the thread has reached 7 pages and has a 5 star rating, yet not one person has brought an actual DCT complaint here. I wonder how long it will be before we see a new thread pop up about somebody's DCT issue.


...I tried.
 
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