Hello everyone,

I bought my manual transmission Fiesta ST Line brand new back in October.

As soon as I took it out of the dealership for its first ride, I noticed something weird about how the clutch felt.
Apart from it feeling a bit stiff, It had a "scratchy" feeling when pressed or depressed. You can't hear it, only feel it. At first I thought that was normal because the car was new so I had to do a few miles first before I started looking for  problems.

As you can understand, now after 2000 miles, the problem persisted and actually got worse over time, to the point that now everytime I change gears I get this scratchy feeling through my leg and it is a real disturbance.
Another thing that happens is that when I go over 2.500 - 3.000 rpm on the highway and press the clutch, rpms go up until they go down again without me pressing the gas.
Are those things normal? Should they happen? My dealership insists it's normal but I have driven a lot of cars and never felt something like this again.

Thanks!

 

 

 

Clutch doesn't sound right, mine is very smooth, I'd have that checked out under warranty.

Revs momentarily rising on upchanges has been widely reported and is apparently "normal". I wouldn't even have noticed it on mine until I saw it on here, looked at the rev counter when changing up, and noticed it briefly flicked up. If yours is very noticeable, or revs take a long time to drop, that doesn't sound quite the same though.

1 minute ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Clutch doesn't sound right, mine is very smooth, I'd have that checked out under warranty.

Revs momentarily rising on upchanges has been widely reported and is apparently "normal". I wouldn't even have noticed it on mine until I saw it on here, looked at the rev counter when changing up, and noticed it briefly flicked up. If yours is very noticeable, or revs take a long time to drop, that doesn't sound quite the same though.

Hello Eric,

Thanks for your response. So when you press the clutch pedal you don't feel any tremble, scratch or stiffness at any point? Even near the "biting" point? 
If I do have a problem, I don't know how I can prove it to them. They may not want to fix it... And as you said I want to take advantage of my warranty before it gets worse....

1 hour ago, CKO20 said:

So when you press the clutch pedal you don't feel any tremble, scratch or stiffness at any point?

That's right. It's best to try and keep the dealer onside if you can, perhaps raising it with the service manager or dealer principal if not happy with response at the service desk. You could ask for a drive in their demo car and let them try and prove yours is normal. If no progress, you could involve Ford customer services.

Just now, Eric Bloodaxe said:

That's right. It's best to try and keep the dealer onside if you can, perhaps raising it with the service manager of dealer principal if not happy with response at the service desk. You could ask for a drive in their demo car and let them try and prove yours is normal. If no progress, you could involve Ford customer services.

That was my first thought. Now that I see that I may have a case I will try to get their demo st line for a test drive tommorow. I will update my thread as soon I have any news.

10 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

So when you press the clutch pedal you don't feel any tremble, scratch or stiffness at any point?

I've got a 2019 ST-Line X 140 in October, my clutch is smooth as silk, no vibrations etc... 

And yes it does rev up ever so slightly on upchanges but only by about 100-200 rpm or so when I change up at about 2500 rpm it briefly goes up to just over 2,600.

Not sure if that's by design or what advantage it gives if it is?