Hi, 

 

I have a 2013 ford focus eco, 1.6 diesel. I've had it for 9 months and it has done 70k miles.

 

It started making a rattling sound while driving last week. So I took it to a garage who have said the gear box was bone dry  no sign of leaks... and because of this it needs a whole new gear box and its shattered the clutch. 

 

Should this have happened?  I was told it got a full service by arnold Clark in october before I bought it. 

I find it very, very hard to believe that the gearbox has no oil in.

Take it somewhere else for a second opinion.

Sounds more like Dual mass flywheel has gone, which would explain clutch issues.

If you purchased the car with finance you may be able to claim under the sale of goods act as you have a right to expect some form of longevity.

Worse case scenario, source a second hand gearbox from a write off 

Let us know how you get on

The Focus MK3 with 1.6 TDCI ECOnetic engine has the Ford B6 (Getrag 6MTT250) gearbox. This type of gearbox is considered to be filled for life. There is no specified service interval for changing the oil or even checking the oil level of the gearbox. Checking the oil level of the gearbox is not performed during a service of the car.

The Ford B6 gearbox has a very small oil capacity of just 1.67 Litres. My experience is that Ford fills the gearboxes with a bare minimum of oil. This is usually a bit  less oil than specified. Because of the small oil capacity a small leak can cause serious problems very fast. In this case it would be very important to know how much oil was actually drained from the gearbox. 

Both the clutch and gearbox are known problems on the MK3 with 1.6 TDCI engine. Most problems are known to be caused by a combination of high torque and low gearbox  RPM's. This is escpecially a problem on the 1.6 TDCI ECOnetic because this version has a longer final drive than the "normal" 1.6 TDCI. To improve fuel economy the Ford B6 gearbox is filled with a very low viscosity transmission fluid. At a combination of high torque and low gearbox RPM's the lubricating capabilities of the oil is not sufficient which on the longer term results in gearbox damage.

In this case it is very important whether the defective clutch is caused by the defective gearbox or vice versa (or possible not related at all).

 

The 1.6 TDCI has a grease dampened dual mass flywheel. Failure of this type of flywheel is very rare. On the 1.6 TDCI the flywheel usually only needs to be replaced because of damage caused by an external source.