[dan50]

Got the same letter. While it's nice that Ford has extended the warranty, it's not so nice that Ford is content to let us run around with high-failure-rate parts that can strand owners with no warning.

Now maybe the failure rate is minuscule and Ford is just being generous. But that would be unlike Ford, so the failure rate must be significant. Given the possibility for sudden failure and the potential for accidents, to me this should have been a recall. Another chapter in Ford's happy DCT story...and another example of Ford half stepping-up.

 

[dan50]

Separate comment.

If you recall & replace ALL the existing functional TCM's, it's a sure bet that some of those will fail - and the existing one may not have failed.

The only 100% sure way to avoid a high probability of danger from a malfunction is to avoid a situation where a malfunction would be unusually hazardous.

Current brake systems typically fail to a partial performance mode, so making a habit of driving in a manner that requires full performance MAY someday result in an accident. The most common versions of this don't even require a brake failure, just something like less traction than anticipated or another vehicle that changes speed unexpectedly.

Loss of power can have many causes, the transmission is only one of them. Making a habit of requiring power to avoid a collision MAY result in an avoidable accident. Most common is pulling across or into traffic without leaving enough room for traffic to avoid your vehicle IF it doesn't respond as anticipated. Misjudgement in these situations WITH a fully operational vehicle is the largest cause of serious accidents, so the situation should be avoided in any case.


I don't want to discount the seriousness of an unusually large rate of failures, but since failures of this type WILL happen (no matter how high or low the rate) it makes sense NOT to make a habit of creating situations where the result could be tragic.

Even walking across traffic needs to be done with adequate clearance for safety, running across where a slip or trip would be tragic too often ends that way with NO machinery failures involved.

Sorry for the Rant, I've just seen many posts lately on ALL models mentioning avoidable hazards that mechanical failures can exacerbate. Cases where the machine didn't create the situation, it just failed to remove someone from a hazardous one.

Putting aside the safety issue for the time being, how about owner convenience? Like many, we use our Focus for long-distance vacation travel. So now we know the risk of being stranded in Nowhere, Wyoming while on vacation is higher than we had suspected. And there's no way of predicting or preventing this failure. And Ford knows what the problem is. And it's a higher risk of failure than for a 2014/15 Focus. And typically, failure rates of modern, non-Focus TCMs is so close to zero it can barely be measured.

We're supposed to set off on trips with confidence? And happily buy another Ford so we can repeat the experience? Ford's handling of this may be legal, but it sure doesn't seem smart, especially in the context of this transmission and its history and reputation.

 

[dan50]

You act as if every Focus' transmission is at risk of spontaneously disengaging, where are you getting this data from? Do you have a spreadsheet from Ford stating that this many ppl out of this many have had their transmission spontaneously disengage while driving? This is the issue, there is no "defect" being called out in the TCM, the warranty is simply being extended on it, if Ford came out and said "Hey, we found a defect with the TCM that requires it to be replaced" then I hope they would issue a recall and a notice saying "don't drive the car until fixed, here's a loaner." The vast majority of transmission issues on this site are related to clutches, seals, programming, or any combination of those 3 at once, TCM issues, while relevant, account for a small percentage of issues discussed on these forums.

With your logic, Honda should recall all torque converters on their Civics because they are at risk of failing at some indeterminate point in the future, Volkswagon should recall all Passats because their drive-by-wire throttle might stop responding at some point in the future. It just doesn't pass the logic test, no company can guarantee no issues with their product.

Ford is basically saying that the TCM doesn't meet its own reliability standards - otherwise no warranty extension would be needed. We have no way of knowing what the failure % is, but as others have said, it must be significant for Ford to even raise the issue. I agree if the failure rate is minuscule, Ford has done a nice thing. But if that's not the case, Ford is happily putting a good percentage of us in the position where we will have a breakdown at the time and place of the car's choosing.

I don't know what a TCM replacement costs Ford, but I would bet it's modest, certainly compared to a torque converter on a Civic. And keep in mind 2012 Focus DCT owners have been put through lots already with multiple trips for reprogramming, lots of clutch and seal replacements, trashed resale value, etc. Ford hanging this unresolved issue on top of everything else is just kind of insulting.

 

[dan50]

This is the actual intersection where I was almost killed due to a TCM failure. This is the busiest freeway intersection in Rockwall. Cars are always flying at high speed down the frontage road. As you can see, I faced the threat of being hit by oncoming traffic as well as rear ended by cars flying around the blind curve under the freeway. I waited for a rare opening in traffic and had just pulled out on the frontage road when the transmission spontaneously disengaged. Keep in mind this happened a couple of years ago when few people knew about this defect. In the noisy freeway environment, I thought the engine may have died but was shocked to see it was still running. I had to turn off the car and restart it to get the transmission to re-engage.

So if anybody thinks a TCM failure is a trivial inconvenience, try to imagine what I went through. The TCM can and will fail at the worst possible time. If Ford has sufficient failure rate data to warrant sending out these letters, I implore them to do the right thing and replace all TCMs on 2012 models. Your life may depend on it.

Wavsine, was your TCM replaced after this episode or was it another "can't duplicate problem" affair?

All this verbiage about driving defensively and the like is fine, and I expect most forum members do just that. But it's really hard to drive always anticipating a sudden, immobilizing transmission malfunction. And let's not forget that the Focus is driven by everyone from enthusiasts to grannies, so once again the typical Focus driver shouldn't have to adjust their style to accommodate DCT peculiarities as Ford apologists would have it. They should explain this issue to their aged, Focus-driving mothers, tell them not to worry, just "drive around it" and wait for the reaction.

 

[dan50]

Browsing around the forum on the issue of TCM failures provided a bit more information. The TCM module itself evidently costs the consumer around $900 with another $400 or so of labor for replacement. As is typical these days, the TCM is integrated with other bits to comprise a substantial replacement part.

No telling what Ford's actual costs are for such a replacement, but somewhere in the $1,000 range seems reasonable. So, if the at-risk population is 200,000 2012 U.S. Focus models (plus Fiesta, plus 6DCT250 equipped cars sold elsewhere), a recall would be one expensive $200 million plus proposition for Ford. Of course manufacturers will look at costs and risks when considering a non-NHSTA recall, so Ford's conclusion must be that few people will die from the faulty TCM and the major impact will be owner inconvenience. Which is OK logic if you're not one of the unlucky ones. Sure wouldn't want to be one of those making these decisions...