Ford recall - software update clutch slip 18S07

[Botus]

I'm an ex vehicle tech...   very heavy wear at this sort of milage sounds like abuse. 

Although the clutch is seen to be weaker than it should have been, under "normal use" its should survive normal bad driving till 45k without issue.  The recall is a safety thing.  Severly abused low mileage cars or poor mechanical knowledge at higher mileage may result in a driver continuing to operate the vehicle when the clutch is clearly failing.  This leads to a self destructing clutch which can cause an under bonnet fire.  The recall work is not there to extend the life of the unit, but to avoid issues once its worn out.

Even my sister (a woman driver) has got 52k miles out of hers and it passed the test during the recall... although I drove it the other day and it now seems to have a very stiff pedal that I don't remember it had before or a 1000 miles after the update !!! and the mapping is a joke with a new nasty stutter behaviour at low revs (which seems to be a new emission created joke), I guess after the VAG "scandal" Ford felt the need to comply as well... which is what this recall is really about but we are all pretending otherwise !

[Middleman]

4 hours ago, Botus said:

I'm an ex vehicle tech...   very heavy wear at this sort of milage sounds like abuse. 

Although the clutch is seen to be weaker than it should have been, under "normal use" its should survive normal bad driving till 45k without issue.  The recall is a safety thing.  Severly abused low mileage cars or poor mechanical knowledge at higher mileage may result in a driver continuing to operate the vehicle when the clutch is clearly failing.  This leads to a self destructing clutch which can cause an under bonnet fire.  The recall work is not there to extend the life of the unit, but to avoid issues once its worn out.

Even my sister (a woman driver) has got 52k miles out of hers and it passed the test during the recall... although I drove it the other day and it now seems to have a very stiff pedal that I don't remember it had before or a 1000 miles after the update !!! and the mapping is a joke with a new nasty stutter behaviour at low revs (which seems to be a new emission created joke), I guess after the VAG "scandal" Ford felt the need to comply as well... which is what this recall is really about but we are all pretending otherwise !

I am hoping that you are wrong Botus and that the 18s07 recall is more than just a safety thing. I am trying to use it to get a replacement clutch assembly for our Focus. In my earlier post I set out in detail what happened to my wife on Thursday 27th June 2019. I want to use 18s07 to prove to Ford Customer service that the clutch did not start slipping until the day before that (26th June) as part of the plan to get them to pay the full £750 for a new clutch. We have already pointed out to Ford Customer service the low mileage and got an offer of £245 as a "Goodwill payment" . It is not what we are after so we refused that offer and are now working on a warranty claim for the full replacement. I would appreciate anything you or anyone else might know that will help me in that or to warn me if I am getting something wrong

The warranty claim will be against the 2018 Warranty rules which are what is in the documentation that came with my Focus. As I read it, there is now no blanket exclusion under the warranty of the clutch. I believe there used to be one. Instead there is now only an exclusion of "wear and tear parts". Friction items like the clutch plates are only excluded if the failure is due to normal wear and tear. Thanks to 18s07 I am hopeful that I will be able to show that what was happening in the clutch assembly on that Thursday is far from normal wear and tear.

We got the Recall notice in March and the car went in to the dealers on 26th march 2019 - I have the Job card in front of me now and I see that the mileage then was 8629.  It says "Clutch slip detection passed, pin p??t test updated pass 2207165". That p??t  could be "past" "post" or "port". I have no idea what any of them are. That is not important as long as it means that they did install the software patch then. What is important is that there was no clutch slipping then. It appears that whenever the car is running the engine speed is being constantly compared with the road speed and if that shows that the clutch is slipping it will display an orange warning message saying that it needs a service.So when you don't get the message it proves that the clutch is not slipping. The AA man representing Ford Assist on the morning of 28 June kept asking whether it was orange or red. Don't know why that mattered so much to him. The damage to the clutch had all been done by then anyway.  The first time my wife saw the message was late evening on 26th June so we know that the clutch first started slipping then.

Hey, I just noticed the time. This will have to continue tomorrow.

[Middleman]

Here I am again. Since last night things have changed again. My hope that I could get a new clutch through Ford Customer services has gone. They have now phoned to say that the case is closed with the obligatory line about your right to complain to the ombudsman. So that is the end of that. I have been this far before with Ford who appear to have a policy of always denying that there is ever anything wrong with their products. Ford are a big US corporation of course and that is what most of them do. Last time was when I had a Mk2 focus suffering with another long running problem that Ford were denying responsibility for, the Instrument cluster failures. I joined the RAC motoring forum then to discuss that one. Ford Customer services were just as useless then. I was lucky though that the fault they denied, was electronic and as my job prior to retirement involved sorting out and fixing complex electronic systems I was able to find out what the problem was and repair the instrument cluster myself. The Focus worked fine for another 3 years until the scrappage schemes for cars over 10 years old was offering such ridiculously generous trade in discounts that I could not ignore them. That is when I bought the Mk 3 Focus and until now I have been very impressed with it.

This time is more difficult because I have to get the clutch mended before I can get the car back and start using it again. I have little choice other than paying for the clutch to be mended and then trying to recover what I have had to pay out. I think I have very good evidence to confront them with that a new clutch assembly should have been fitted under warranty. So I think it will be worth trying a written complaint to the head of the department with all of the evidence enclosed. It sometimes scares them enough to pay up but I have no experience with Ford. I will keep you informed of what happens.

[Botus]

in the last 25 years a number of things have changed in the world that won't help the longevity of a clutch unit

1) the world moved to a throw away short life cycle society (and car manu got in on the act very heavily from 2010 with 7 years life on the Toyota side and 4 years for BMW & Merc)

2) traffic increased and deliberate traffic slowing schemes mean you need to change gear twice as much as you did

3) emission control makes modern car less easy to drive / flexible and in frustration many have dropped driving standards and slip the clutch instead of changing down

4) cars got far heavier, so the work it has to do went up

5) electronic joke handbrakes took over from simple ones you could use properly on a hill or in traffic

If the clutch is in good condition (and built strong enough) it will never have wear when your foot is off the pedal, ALL wear should only happen as a driver operates it...  If you bought secondhand and or others drive the car of course you can't know how its treated when you are out of the car.  Re the software, reducing engine performance shouldn't affect wear at all (unless they dramatically altered it, so things like 0 to 30 was 3 second less - which they didn't do)

[Middleman]

I am sure that is true, but it is obvious to me that this is not cumulative wear and tear that has burnt out the clutch. It has to be a mechanical or hydraulic fault in the clutch system. and probably one that  has been going on for years with the Mk 3 focus. Ford have made no effort to find out what the problem is. They just deny that the problem exists. I drove the car just a couple of days previously and there was no sign whatsoever of any clutch slip. About a month before that we took it up to the lake district and I drove up and down many steep hills, some as steep as 1 in 4. Not a sign of clutch slip. I find it ridiculous that it could possibly change from that to a state where special software installed by a safety recall is necessary to avoid the clutch catching fire, in just one day after 150 miles of normal motorway later.

[TomsFocus]

12 hours ago, Middleman said:

I am sure that is true, but it is obvious to me that this is not cumulative wear and tear that has burnt out the clutch. It has to be a mechanical or hydraulic fault in the clutch system. and probably one that  has been going on for years with the Mk 3 focus. Ford have made no effort to find out what the problem is. They just deny that the problem exists. I drove the car just a couple of days previously and there was no sign whatsoever of any clutch slip. About a month before that we took it up to the lake district and I drove up and down many steep hills, some as steep as 1 in 4. Not a sign of clutch slip. I find it ridiculous that it could possibly change from that to a state where special software installed by a safety recall is necessary to avoid the clutch catching fire, in just one day after 150 miles of normal motorway later.

You didn't notice the clutch slip, but that doesn't mean it's not happening.  The clutches aren't up to the job on these, Ford are well aware of this, hence the software to reduce the engines torque during the recall.  The clutch spring is only finitely strong, and the centre plate material can only provide a certain amount of friction.  Either there's not enough grip from the centre plate compound (like with cheap brake pads), or not enough clamping force from the clutch spring under certain conditions - overboost for example.  It's only 'slight' slip though, which is why people don't notice it...  Rather than replace every single Focus clutch it's cheaper for Ford to just reduce torque and smooth the torque curve to reduce the risk of slip.  The DMF never has been part of the recall as it's not a safety issue as no risk of fire.

[Botus]

On ‎7‎/‎3‎/‎2019 at 10:35 PM, Middleman said:

the local dealer stripped down the clutch and found that one side of the plate had been completely warn away and that it would cost us £750 to replace as the clutch is not covered by the warranty.

 

I hadn't read this post before...

clutches shouldn't wear unevenly....   you need to see the component and then ask awkward questions.  a defect would cause uneven wear, whereas no matter how you drive it should not be possible to make one side wear more than the other to any appreciable manner.... that would be like only one side of a set of brake pads wearing out on the same wheel... which would be something like is a sticky piston, non sliding calliper (on single piston variety most small cars use for last 35 years) or pads stuck

this type of wear on a clutch could be uneven pressure (hence causing slip) because the centre plate is stuck on the gearbox input shaft.

I suspect it will be long gone from your eyes, but would present great evidence of a manufacturing issue and so not your cost...

 

 

 

[Eric Bloodaxe]

 

On 7/8/2019 at 5:04 PM, Botus said:

in the last 25 years a number of things have changed in the world that won't help the longevity of a clutch unit

1) the world moved to a throw away short life cycle society (and car manu got in on the act very heavily from 2010 with 7 years life on the Toyota side and 4 years for BMW & Merc)

2) traffic increased and deliberate traffic slowing schemes mean you need to change gear twice as much as you did

3) emission control makes modern car less easy to drive / flexible and in frustration many have dropped driving standards and slip the clutch instead of changing down

4) cars got far heavier, so the work it has to do went up

5) electronic joke handbrakes took over from simple ones you could use properly on a hill or in traffic

Not having a Focus, only just got round to reading this thread. At one time I would have thought "unbelievable" but emissions scandals, ecoboost coolant issues etc, etc make it look  par for the course now!

I would add one more thing to the list above, and we're all partly complicit in it, and that is adding more and more equipment to cars without increasing prices too much, which must lead to reduction in quality of basic components.

[Middleman]

2 hours ago, Botus said:

I hadn't read this post before...

clutches shouldn't wear unevenly....   you need to see the component and then ask awkward questions.  a defect would cause uneven wear, whereas no matter how you drive it should not be possible to make one side wear more than the other to any appreciable manner.... that would be like only one side of a set of brake pads wearing out on the same wheel... which would be something like is a sticky piston, non sliding calliper (on single piston variety most small cars use for last 35 years) or pads stuck

this type of wear on a clutch could be uneven pressure (hence causing slip) because the centre plate is stuck on the gearbox input shaft.

I suspect it will be long gone from your eyes, but would present great evidence of a manufacturing issue and so not your cost...

 

 

 

 

[Middleman]

1 hour ago, Middleman said:

Whoops. I see that somehow the message that I thought I had attached to the previous post has got lost, so I have sent it again below......

Thank you Botus. It is over a week ago that the mechanic at my local Ford dealer in Farnborough showed me the clutch plate but I think that I can remember roughly what it looked like, Our Mk 3 focus was still up on the lift where he had taken the disk out so I am not sure which side was which. The side he showed me had most of the segmented wear pattern area completely ground away but there was a small area where the pattern was still just visible. The other side I only saw briefly but it looked to be in pretty good condition. It is around 30 years since I last repaired a worn out clutch myself but I recall that the heads of the rivets that attached it to the axle mounted disk were usually partly worn away too. I do not know how these modern two sided clutches are held together but I do not recall seeing any sign of rivet heads on the clutch plate I was shown last week. For the last 30 years I have used an Independent Ford Specialist who will come to my house to repair a worn out clutch on our Ford cars (2 Mondeos and 2 Focuses). The clutch on the Mk2 Focus which, like the present one, is mainly used by my wife lasted to around 70,000 miles I think but the Mk3, which I have brought home today after the clutch has been replaced at our expense after Ford Customer Services refused to replace it under warranty despite it only being only just over 15 months old, shows 10,096 miles on the clock.

I doubt if the Ford dealer still has the old clutch but it might be worth asking them, I suppose.

 

[Botus]

people get muddled on naming, EVEN THE NAMING IN THE TWO PICTURES BELOW IS WRONG when your foot is OFF the pedal the clutch is disengaged …   as in the drive from the engine goes straight to the wheels (if the gearbox is in a gear), pressing down the clutch pedal "engages" the clutch and disconnects the drive from the engine from the wheels

if one side is worn, to me sound like the clutch plate was stuck on the splines of the shaft going in to the gearbox...  has it ever been stuck in a flood or stood for years before purchase?

in the pictures below, if the orange "clutch disc" is stuck on the grey "input shaft" you ought to feel the gear change isn't as slick to move as it should be.  You might crunch a gear no matter how you drive, or its very stiff to change.  If this condition was really bad you could transmit drive over one side of the clutch - drastically reducing the amount of torque it will transmit, creating some continual slip till its heavily worn on one side.

Something caused it, not the way its driven (until you continue to use it when the fault is present)

 

[TomsFocus]

1 hour ago, Botus said:

people get muddled on naming, EVEN THE NAMING IN THE TWO PICTURES BELOW IS WRONG when your foot is OFF the pedal the clutch is disengaged …   as in the drive from the engine goes straight to the wheels (if the gearbox is in a gear), pressing down the clutch pedal "engages" the clutch and disconnects the drive from the engine from the wheels

I disagree.  Engagement is joining two items together.  Under normal use the clutch is engaged, joining the engine to the gearbox.  When you press the pedal you disengage the clutch to separate the gearbox from the engine.

Uneven centre plate wear isn't unusual with a slipping clutch, the flywheel creates a turning force against one side of the centre plate, the gearbox restricts this force.  When the engine produces a sudden spike in torque (such as overboost) the clutch slips briefly one side of the centre plate only, creating uneven wear over time.

[Eric Bloodaxe]

2 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

Engagement is joining two items together.  Under normal use the clutch is engaged, joining the engine to the gearbox.  When you press the pedal you disengage the clutch to separate the gearbox from the engine.

I've always thought of it that way, too. Perhaps confusion arises because of the old phrase "letting the clutch out" (after opening the door first, of course!😀)

[Middleman]

12 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

I disagree.  Engagement is joining two items together.  Under normal use the clutch is engaged, joining the engine to the gearbox.  When you press the pedal you disengage the clutch to separate the gearbox from the engine.

Uneven centre plate wear isn't unusual with a slipping clutch, the flywheel creates a turning force against one side of the centre plate, the gearbox restricts this force.  When the engine produces a sudden spike in torque (such as overboost) the clutch slips briefly one side of the centre plate only, creating uneven wear over time.

I have certainly been using Engagement to mean what TomsFocus thinks in the discussion to date.

Tomorrow I am hoping to pick up the clutch parts that the Ford dealer replaced. I was very lucky. When I rang up to ask if I could have them they were in their dispatch department, about to be sent back to the firm that supplied them. As they were refurbished parts that they fitted, there is a payment back if they return the parts for re-use again. Anyway, they rescued them and at first said that to get them back I would have to pay what they could have reclaimed for them. They did though later agree that I could have then without paying.

How we can continue to discuss them when I do get them I do not know, if we cannot even agree on what the clutch being engaged means? I will tell you more tomorrow.

[Botus]

there's nothing much sensible on the web on this....

most articles are going on about the purpose of a clutch is to transmit drive.,.... this is totally wrong.  A drive shaft transmits drive, if you want to interrupt this drive you fit a clutch to decouple the drive.  Hence when you use the clutch to stop the drive you engage it - otherwise we wouldn't have one

it appears modern parlance has confused its purpose and led to a new way to interpret the state its in

 

 

[Middleman]

I have now got the old parts and have taken some photographs. The clutch plate is heavily worn both front and back as you can see from the pictures I have attached. The flywheel has marks on it but no sign of scoring. There is a tiny chip missing from one of the teeth of the spline.

The car was ordered in January 2018 with a few of the optional extras that we had selected and we had to wait about 6 weeks before it was delivered. I assumed that we were getting it straight from the production line but I suppose it might have been sitting around somewhere waiting for a buyer. Our old Focus 2 was over 10 years old and there were big discounts available from various government, manufacturers and dealers schemes. Too good to miss but I know that many were waiting for the mark 4 and the market was very slack.

[TomsFocus]

8 hours ago, Middleman said:

I have now got the old parts and have taken some photographs. The clutch plate is heavily worn both front and back as you can see from the pictures I have attached. The flywheel has marks on it but no sign of scoring. There is a tiny chip missing from one of the teeth of the spline.

Picture 3 is the pressure plate btw, not the flywheel.  The bluish marks on it are caused by excess heat from clutch slip.  It would only get scored if you wear away enough of the friction material for the rivets to come into contact with it.

I must admit, I hadn't realised yours was so new (this thread is so long it's hard to keep up with who's having each issue lol).  I would expect a goodwill from Ford, but they won't pay the whole thing as it is indeed classed as a wear and tear part despite the low mileage.  

[Botus]

ummm, it must be a weak design as the wear from what I see isn't enough to cause slip

you know the way the legislation works is if the fault is there at the time of manufacture its ford's problem not yours...

1) as there is evidence they have wound back the power in software

2) yours doesn't look abused (nor do the splines look like they would have caused an issue on the input shaft)

3) wear isn't that high

yet its slipping ….that sounds like it was made badly … hence ford need to get their money out.... you could go to small claims court, highly likely you'd win as ford wont pay to defend the case.  you can at least put those points over to argue for more than the 250, offer to go halves or fight them?

Only other thing is it doesn't look unevenly worn to me …. a picture the other side of the pressure plate near the centre would be interesting... to see level of wear on diaphragm fingers

[Middleman]

12 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

Picture 3 is the pressure plate btw, not the flywheel.  The bluish marks on it are caused by excess heat from clutch slip.  It would only get scored if you wear away enough of the friction material for the rivets to come into contact with it.

I must admit, I hadn't realised yours was so new (this thread is so long it's hard to keep up with who's having each issue lol).  I would expect a goodwill from Ford, but they won't pay the whole thing as it is indeed classed as a wear and tear part despite the low mileage.  

Thanks TomsFocus and Botus.

What is important to point out is that the service Portfolio booklet I was given when our Focus 3 was delivered in march 2018 was Issue gbr CG2127 published 07/2017. In the Warranty Terms and Conditions some of the  Exclusions that Ford used to apply are now no longer included (I think it was either the European Union or the Ombudsman who decided that the exclusions were unfair and had to be removed). In particular they can no longer exclude the clutch from the warranty just because it contains an item subject to wear and tear. It is the Wear and Tear itself that determines if it can be excluded. Normal Wear and Tear of a "friction component" does still allow a replacement of the assembly that contains it to be excluded from the Warranty, but damage to the component not caused by Normal Wear and Tear  does not allow replacement of the assembly to be excluded.

Needless to say they have made the Warranty Terms and Conditions as difficult to understand as possible including use of a double negative in one place and they do not say who has to prove whether or not it is Normal Wear and Tear that has caused the damage. I do intend to send them a formal complaint about the way they have handled the case. There is quite a lot to complain about that I have not yet even told you about. I find it hard to believe they get away with what they do.

Thanks for the corrections to what I said, Toms Focus. I am going to need to get it right and I have a few other questions I need to ask that I hope you or Botus will know the answers to.

Botus, I will take the photo of the rear of the pressure plate tomorrow and attach it to another post.

[Middleman]

On 7/16/2019 at 7:17 PM, Botus said:

ummm, it must be a weak design as the wear from what I see isn't enough to cause slip

you know the way the legislation works is if the fault is there at the time of manufacture its ford's problem not yours...

1) as there is evidence they have wound back the power in software

2) yours doesn't look abused (nor do the splines look like they would have caused an issue on the input shaft)

3) wear isn't that high

yet its slipping ….that sounds like it was made badly … hence ford need to get their money out.... you could go to small claims court, highly likely you'd win as ford wont pay to defend the case.  you can at least put those points over to argue for more than the 250, offer to go halves or fight them?

Only other thing is it doesn't look unevenly worn to me …. a picture the other side of the pressure plate near the centre would be interesting... to see level of wear on diaphragm fingers

I would never have thought of looking at the back of the fingers, but I think this may be what we are searching for. When I turned the pressure plate over it was filthy dirty with a huge amount of carbon dust, as is probably pretty obvious from the photos.. I hope that you can see on them the uneven wear on the ends of the fingers as well. The fingers at the top of the photos have clear wear to the metal. I would say at least 1mm has been ground off. The ones at the bottom have no visible wear at all. Does this indicate a fault in the release fork?

[Botus]

I can't see anything there, other than a lot of dust (but if it let go and you drove till it couldn't move further not totally surprising)

clearly no oil leak or corrosion going on, does you wife leave her foot on the clutch ? if she drives well with not bad habits I'd keep fighting your corner, the centre plate shouldn't give up (start clipping) with that little wear

[Middleman]

On 7/17/2019 at 11:04 PM, Botus said:

I can't see anything there, other than a lot of dust (but if it let go and you drove till it couldn't move further not totally surprising)

clearly no oil leak or corrosion going on, does you wife leave her foot on the clutch ? if she drives well with not bad habits I'd keep fighting your corner, the centre plate shouldn't give up (start clipping) with that little wear

I do not understand what it was that you expected to see on the back of the diaphragm fingers. Photographs do not always show what is going on. As I said 4 fingers near the top of the photograph (10 o'clock to 12 o'clock positions) are clearly worn when you see them in 3-D. They look as they would if someone had filed them flat, but it was only "filed flat" by about 1mm even on the worst one.  All the other fingers are still round and the one at 7 o'clock has not even had the carbon dust wiped off by the throw-out bearing while the clutch was engaging and disengaging. I assume that the throw-out bearing will pivot so that it presses evenly on all the fingers, so you would expect any visible rubbing to be the same on all of them.

I included all that stuff about the Warranty terms and conditions that should have been observed during the case investigation. They set that up after we rejected their offer of a "Goodwill payment" because of the low mileage. It was much the same as the offers they made when they were able to exclude liability just because the clutch was worn. They seemed to have completely ignored that they were now required to judge on whether or not this was "normal wear and tear". Afterwards they gave no reasons for rejecting our claim for a replacement clutch assembly to be fitted at no cost, just a phone call to say they had rejected the claim and the case was closed. Nothing on paper that you could use to challenge their judgement. What a disgraceful way to treat their customers.

Anyway, back to your questions. My wife does not leave her foot on the clutch, never has done that. She did slip the clutch longer than I would though and used to rev the engine up to a higher speed than I did before letting in the clutch when pulling away. It is something she learned many years ago driving big under-powered estate cars with 3 children in the back and loads of luggage . She was always worried that she would stall the engine in the middle of the traffic. She also slipped the clutch a lot when reversing because she had backed into things on quite a few occasions. That is why we often needed a new clutch after 5 or 6 years. The ironic thing is that with the new Mk3 focus she was getting better. The ecoboost engine always seems to have power to spare and never feels as though it is about to stall, and having chosen to have a rear view camera fitted she is a lot more confident when reversing. So she is slipping the clutch a lot less.

 

[Botus]

just wanted to see if all there, nothing bent, missing, severely damaged etc.

the thrust release bearing runs on this part and is "all" that operates the clutch, there will be wear there.... if a "normal" clutch (with a great thrust release bearing) is driven for hundreds of thousands of miles, its these fingers that snap off the tips that usually causes the clutch to need replacing

small caveat: when getting the box out sometimes a few "fingers" get twanged as they get it out of the tight space and the weight wears out the apprentices delicate arms….

a bit of slip pulling away shouldn't kill it.... I'm more suggesting a terrible habit many now have where can't be bothered with second / gear changing, lets abuse it and pretend its an auto !!!

 

 

 

[Middleman]

2 hours ago, Botus said:

just wanted to see if all there, nothing bent, missing, severely damaged etc.

the thrust release bearing runs on this part and is "all" that operates the clutch, there will be wear there.... if a "normal" clutch (with a great thrust release bearing) is driven for hundreds of thousands of miles, its these fingers that snap off the tips that usually causes the clutch to need replacing

small caveat: when getting the box out sometimes a few "fingers" get twanged as they get it out of the tight space and the weight wears out the apprentices delicate arms….

a bit of slip pulling away shouldn't kill it.... I'm more suggesting a terrible habit many now have where can't be bothered with second / gear changing, lets abuse it and pretend its an auto !!!

 

 

 

So. It's none of the parts they have changed (and I paid for) and there is probably some part still left in my car that can easily do the same thing again. All the more reason to make Ford change the whole assembly including flywheel and input shaft at their expense. I have not yet mentioned that when my wife picked it up after the clutch plate and cover had been changed and drove the few miles home from the dealer she noticed a small judder whenever she changed gear. I took it out myself and drove it down a faster road. The clutch judders were quite obvious and got worse as the speed increased. Then they just stopped and the gear changes have since been just as smooth as they were in the 15 months before it apparently stripped in 24 hours the whole of the clutch plate surfaces that should have lasted some 7 years. Where do you go from there?

[iantt]

Sounds and looks like wear and tear to me. My partner has a fiesta and I had a focus , with basically the same clutch and gearbox. (Ib5) 

When I sold my car my car with 70k miles the clutch was fine, no heavy pedal. No slip. I've never had to change a clutch on any of my cars in 38 yrs

My partners fiesta is getting close to needing a clutch, heavy pedal but not slipping yet. Only on 30k . Only just noticed recently she holds the car on an incline using the clutch occasionally. Just that action occasionally is enough to wear the clutch. The difference between a new clutch friction plate and worn out is only approx 2mm on each side . Some customers can wear it out in 500 miles, some 150'000 miles. It all depends on driving technique pulling away or reversing , and terrain, hilly , slopes off driveways etc etc. Stop start traffic( which is alot more than years ago) Lots of variables .