Good evening, 

 

I have a 2014 Fiesta Ecoboost 1.0L Red Edition (140bhp) and recently I've been having problems mostly with 2nd gear but sometimes with 1st also. 

 

It started a couple of months back and the problem was just that I couldn't downshift into 2nd and would only seem to work if driving at less than 10mph (although this doesn't always solve it).  

 

However recently I tried to pull away from the lights and couldn't get into 1st or 2nd at all no matter how hard I tried. Yet I've driven the car since and it was completely fine. 

 

The annoying thing is, the problem is so intermittent - one day it will go into gear smooth as anything and the next it simply won't. 

 

It's completely random and doesn't seem to be linked with temperature, how long I've been driving, driving style etc. It's literally become a 50/50 gamble as to whether it's going to go into gear or not. I've never had a problem with other gears and I've done approx 75K miles with no work done to the gearbox or clutch. 

 

I'm tempted to just get a 2nd hand gearbox from eBay with less than 10K miles but wondered if there's anything else people would suggest trying out/checking first? 

 

Many thanks in advance for any assistance! 

 

 

i have a 2013 zetec 1.25L and it does the same thing for first gear, my suspicion is it is the first gear synchros, haven't had any issues with second yet, although my car has almost 23k miles on the clock, if i were you, i would take to a reliable garage and see what they think.

Is the car remapped? The 140ps variant of the ecoboost is already on the torque limit of the gearbox. Drive it like a ***** or remap it and you'll wear the synchros out in no time.

Thanks guys - Yeah synchro was my first thought tbh considering it's just 1st & 2nd and never had a problem with other gears but seen similar posts where people are saying it could be the slave cylinder? Only problem with taking it somewhere is that the problem is so intermittent. 

 

It's not mapped yet - that was the plan though... Yeah I must admit I don't exactly shift in the most delicate way possible!

 

I just want to be sure that paying £300-400 for another gearbox is going to resolve the issue or if there might be a cheaper and simpler fix! 

No, sorry. The gearboxes in these are a bit close to the design limit and I have seen them disintegrate in far fewer than 75,000 miles when driven unsympathetically.

20 hours ago, JoshLee1297 said:

I just want to be sure that paying £300-400 for another gearbox is going to resolve the issue or if there might be a cheaper and simpler fix! 

You are not going to find a replacement gearbox for that amount of money.

The 140 HP version of the Fiesta 1.0 ECOboost has a different gearbox than the 100 HP and 125 HP versions. The 140 HP version has an uprated version of the IB5 gearbox with stronger internals to handle the additional torque. Unfortunately this uprated version of the IB5 gearbox is still not capable to handle the amount of torque that the engine produces very well.

The uprated 140 HP version gearboxes are quite rare and cost quite a lot of money. It may even be cheaper to fully rebuild the original gearbox. 

55 minutes ago, anon said:

The gearboxes in these are a bit close to the design limit

About right for Ford lol! 😄

Sounds like I've done well to get 75K out of it. 

Cheers!

39 minutes ago, JW1982 said:

You are not going to find a replacement gearbox for that amount of money.

Thanks for your help! Annoying to learn about another design issue with the ecoboost though! 

I may have to think twice about my plans to re-map if the box can barely handle stock performance! 

Luckily I've managed to find one for £380 from a reputable gearbox specialist with under 10k miles and a 3-month warranty and they have confirmed it is the correct box for my reg.

 

 

 

 

 

Did you ever get a fix to this issue? My fathers car has developed the same problem. Cheers.