Me and a buddy went window shopping the other day, man-style. WE were in the Houston TX area and visited some of the very large Ford dealerships there. They had literally rows of Focuses. HOWEVER we saw not a single 5-speed. EVERYTHING was automatic, even ALL of the Fiestas too. I know I have the only 5-speed Focus that I have seen at any of my local dealers, but I thought that was justbecause they were small and only had 5-6 Focuses on the lot. I though surely the large dealers with 20 or so on the lot would have one or two.
Out of curiosity, WHO here has 5-speeds? I love my manual, and as the wife drives it more and more she is falling in love with it to.
Just ordered my Titanium 5 spd in performance blue. They're building it tomorrow. Can't wait to get it! I love driving a stick, and so does my wife. I'm trading in my '09 Mini-Cooper Clubman (also with a stick). Does anybody know where to get a nice wood shift knob?
I have a '12 SE sedan and ya, I agree, the low end is a little meh. After 3k, its nice, chirped into second today for the first time too[woot]
Only had it for a few weeks, but I like it. I used to work for enterprise and would drive lots of new focuses and thought, "this car would be nice if it had a manual"
2013 SE with 5-speed, silver sedan. Love the way it shifts. Reminds me of my 2002 3-series BMW. Plus I got a fabulos deal since no one knows how to drive a stick anymore.
I have an odd question for the 5-speed guys. Is your car a little hard to be smooth with? Especially taking off from a stop or shifting up into 2nd or 3rd?
I obv know how to drive stick, have been for years. I just feel like every now and then I have a less than perfect (not bad, just not smooth) experience with the car.
I bought it used 34k on it and have been driving it for 3 weeks now. Maybe I'm not used to it yet, but I know the different brands of cars that I drive at work are more easy to "pick up" than the focus was.
After driving the car for a while, and still not falling in love with the clutch feel, I decided to make a clutch stop. What I did was take a 3/4 inch block of wood and used velcro to attach it to my Husky rubber floor mat. This takes up a good amount of the free travel in the clutch pedal.
Car now drives a lot nicer and shifts great. Only have to raise the clutch a little bit to engage, similar to a European clutch, that I am more used to. I did ensure that the clutch disengages fully when pressed.
Hands down the best mod I did to my car. I want to add a thin piece of rubber to the top for a cushion.
The clutch is slightly light, but there was still a lot of feel. If you want to talk about a feather weight clutch you'd have to talk about the over assisted Fiesta clutch, or the marshmallow of a clutch in the terrible Aveo.
The clutch in the focus felt much like the one in the old Prizm that I was driving for 3 years prior to getting my Focus. It felt good because it was mostly familiar.
It was a little difficult for me when I was test driving mine. The vehicle I had prior to my focus was a 93 Audi 80 over in Germany. But I've been driving it for about ~8 months now and it's smooth as butter, even when I'm powering through the gears.
I know I just have to get used to it, have been a lot better at it and getting better every day. Let my friend drive it that just barely knows how to drive stick and he said it felt pretty easy lol [wiggle]
I'm not real smooth with it in part due to the more agressive clutch in my Subi which I prefer and am much smoother with that one but I'm getting better with the focus the more I drive it. My wife shifts it better than I do.
Well at least I'm not alone haha. I am installing a new rmm from central florida motorsports this weekend and feel like that could make some sort of diff with the overall feel and control of the drive train, as I do notice the more than average engine movement. Will update with results.
Between the many dealers in my general area (the cities along the I-40 corridor in central NC), there were only two manual SE's in stock: one hatch, and one sedan. I preferred a sedan, so I had to go almost an hour away to test-drive it.
I still think there is something off about my drivetrain. At a complete a few stop, the shifter does not engage 1st gear smoothly. I've driven 2 other MK3 focus 5 speeds, and this is not the case with them.
I've also had trouble with the shifter popping out of 1st gear at a stop. Example, I pull up to an intersection. Come to a complete stop, but the shifter from N to 1st gear... when I go to engage the clutch, it will pop the shifter out of the 1st gear slot, make a lovely grinding sound and obviously rev the engine up. It's like when you push the shifter into (what you think is) 1st gear, it's not allowing full motion or travel. It's almost feels like something is binding and preventing you from full engaging that gear selection smoothly.
This hasn't happened as much recently, but the car use to also have trouble shifting from 1st to 2nd gear. You would have to exert a lot more effort than should be necessary to pull it down into 2nd.
Of course the 2 times I've brought the car to the dealers, she's on her best behavior....
I was able to scope it out under the hood a little. I placed the shifter in 1st when it was not engaging smooth, I reached down under the hood with the gear selector linkage and was able to easily pull it the rest of the way over to fully engage first gear.
I don't think the syncros are shot, because I can still put the car into first gear when rolling down the street at 5mph. So I don't know if it's something in the linkage or a shift fork issue... not sure.
Sounds like its in the linkage as you described. How many miles on your car and are you the original owner?
If you are not the original owner, I could imagine that someone might have put some sort of after market shift linkage under the shift boot area. I have heard that the Steeda SSK needs some filing to engage 1st properly, in some situations.
Will pick up my Ignot Silver SE hatch 5 speed this week. Had to get it from a dealer out of state. Why in the world would they not put a 6 speed in it...this is 2013!
A few reasons, one they'd have to re emissions certify and that costs a lot of money, two they would lose a reason to upsell to the DCT which has 6 forward ratios of which the top two are both over driven ratios, and thirdly they know the MTX-75 has been reliable, etc.
The ST gets only the MMT6 but the gear ratios are still shorter than the DCT despite the taller axle ratio.
After reading all the issues with the automatic, I’m glad I lucked into getting a M5. Mine was the last 2012 on the lot and it was the only stick. The lack of low end torque makes the car hard to be smooth coming off the line but once rolling its fine. After test driving the ST while waiting for my oil to be changed, I wish I would've waited a few months to buy, lol. In retrospect though, my gas mileage would've sucked because I would not have been able to keep my foot out of it. [driving]
The manual in my new 2013 se feels fine to me. It has a softer feel than my Jetta did. I find that the gearing is higher than the Jetta and I almost stall if I try to roll stops in second gear. I do like that fifth gear gets me at 3K rpm at 70mph rather than 3500 in my Jetta! I thought it was odd that it didn't come with a six speed bu after driving it..its probably not necessary.
Last may I was so adamant about the manual that I passed on getting a hatch (which I wanted) because they were all automatic in about a 200 mile radius. I wound up going for the sedan in s trim just to get my manual transmission, but I'm hindsight i kinda wish i woulda got the hatch after my mom got one recently and i drove it the last time i was at her place.
About a year ago I wanted a Focus HB and test drove a 2012 Titanium but disliked the DCT so much that I did not even drive the car out of the dealer's lot. And I really wanted a manual but there were none available. I ended up buying a new Hyundai Sonata. However, the more I drove the Sonata, i found the steering drifted at highway speeds and I still did get the manual tranny I really wanted.
Fast forward one year and recently I was able to find a well-equipped Tux Black 2013 Focus SE HB with the manual tranny, leather, rear disc brakes, ambient lighting, and the machined black 17 inch wheels! I was able to do an even trade for the Sonata. I have about 900 miles (including 200 miles in the mountains) on the Focus so far and absolutely love the handling, the 5 speed, and pretty much everything else about the car.
About a year ago I wanted a Focus HB and test drove a 2012 Titanium but disliked the DCT so much that I did not even drive the car out of the dealer's lot. And I really wanted a manual but there were none available. I ended up buying a new Hyundai Sonata. However, the more I drove the Sonata, i found the steering drifted at highway speeds and I still did get the manual tranny I really wanted.
Fast forward one year and recently I was able to find a well-equipped Tux Black 2013 Focus SE HB with the manual tranny, leather, rear disc brakes, ambient lighting, and the machined black 17 inch wheels! I was able to do an even trade for the Sonata. I have about 900 miles (including 200 miles in the mountains) on the Focus so far and absolutely love the handling, the 5 speed, and pretty much everything else about the car.
My story is similar, test drove Ti DCT @ a year ago etc., but I just went ahead and ordered a Ti 5speed. She's coming up on 1year, 26k+ miles. Loving this little car!
There were several manual's to choose from, mine came from out of state. If you want one, you just need to be patient or flexible with other options it seems. I would have ordered/waited to get it if they were not able to locate the one I bought.
I drove 2+ hrs to get mine. The dealer was a pretty bad dealer too, but I wanted the car so much I put up with it. After driving a few hours to sign the paperwork, they claimed it wasn't in yet. As we were leaving we walked around the lot. We saw the car still all wrapped up. I guess they couldn't be bothered to do any of the prep work for it then, so I had to drive an extra 4 hours there and back to get the car the next day. That takes what, 30 minutes, an hour? If the car is sold why not do it!?
Locally my only option in a hatch with the sport package and stick was a yellow blaze, which was a bit too strong for me.
i had to order mine and i'm still waiting for it now. Only manual on the lot was an ST, i tried it and i've been wanting ever since, but other plans will take care of that want.
Got the only 5 speed in my area. Was exactly what I wanted too, grey se sedan. I got very lucky. The next closest one was 4 hours away. Paid $15,5k. I don't think there is another new car out there that can touch it for the price.
Relative to my post yesterday, I paid $19500 after the $2500 rebate. My pricing was predetermined by the X Plan that Ford has for employees of some large companies. Thats a very nice discount off a car with $25,335 MSRP. There is no haggling with the x plan and Ford only allows the dealer to charge $100 for the "documentation fee."
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