hi 

i am hoping someone has come across this before. I have an intermittent problem with stalling after sitting idle at traffic lights, the car stalls as I attempt to move off, on restarting the engine, i cannot go into gear and then the clutch sticks. however, if I switch off engine and start again, its as if nothing happened. No engine lights and drives fab in between. Garage has checked pipes, and flushed clutch fluid amongst other things but its still happening. They have ordered a part for the clutch but its really trial and error at moment, and i dont want to throw money without diagnosis. 

its a 13 plate 1.2 

thanks to anyone with suggestions in advance - I am not a mechanic and clueless about cars. 

Are you sat with your foot on the clutch all the time? It sounds like it could be a master/slave cylinder issue.

 

I think i was on one occasion but at least twice I had been neutral whilst idle. It has happened about 6 times now and starting to lose confidence. worried someone will go into the back of me 

I am trying to be more conscious about what i am doing but then go into auto pilot and trying to retrace steps lol

just reading and can see that could be the gear and clutch issue, but would it cause stalling

10 minutes ago, Sandraie said:

just reading and can see that could be the gear and clutch issue, but would it cause stalling

Yes, but only if the car is in gear with your foot on the clutch. What I think is happening (and it's only a theory) I think it's you causing the stalling because the clutch is behaving differently than your used to. I think there's an internal leak and the fluid from the slave cylinder is leaking back to the master cylinder and lowering the biting point of the clutch as you're losing hydraulic pressure. If you've no hydraulic pressure then the clutch will re-engage itself regardless of whether your foot is on the clutch. Obviously if you let the clutch engage rapidly whilst applying no revs, you will stall the engine.

It doesn't sound like a gearbox issue which is a good thing.

ok thank you very much, my garage has ordered that part. They had the car two weeks ago and couldn't find any leakage or any problems at all. Of course when they test drove it, it behaved perfectly. So they weren't certain that is the problem.  Fingers crossed that will sort it as not ready to change my car just yet. 

 

thanks again for taking the time to reply to my post

My sister has a 2004 fiesta , clutch is same kind of setup as yours I believe. It would have problem where sometimes clutch pedal hydraulics would lose pressure so it wouldn’t declutch. It did not leak fluid.if left standing it would just go back to being ok by magic. I bled the hydraulics but it would occasionally do the same thing. I could only think it was master cylinder fault so I changed master cylinder. But this did not help. I couldn’t really see how it could be the concentric slave cylinder because if that was losing pressure there would be fluid loss wouldn’t there? Note that if car left for a while it would cure itself. It did seem to only have this problem when the engine was hot. I couldn’t do any more for her on it so she took it to a garage and had whole clutch replaced. It has been ok since then which I think was a year ago. So I never got to find out exactly what was causing this intermittent problem

Intermittent issues are such a pain. I am so anxious this will continue. Until now, I have had trouble free motoring having bought it just a few months old 

OK just collected car after having master cylinder changed. Wish me luck. Only time will tell. I will update incase anyone else experiences same 

Hi, wondering if you have any update? I also have a 13 plate 1.2 fiesta with the same issue. The garages near me won’t mess about with it until it’s a constant issue so now I’m stuck only being able to drive locally 

Hi, I am also experiencing the same problem. It only happens If I stall the car. Then the gearbox immediately “locks” and it is impossible to select any gear. This causes me to be totally immobile and holding up traffic. Restarting the engine right away makes no difference to the gear lock situation and I’ve found that the only solution is to just wait for a few minutes with the engine switched off before it returns to normal. Not ideal whilst holding all the traffic up! Yesterday was the first time I’d stalled the car in the past 5 months, so the first time I’d experienced the issue since then. It’s almost like the car goes into “protection mode” for the gearbox following the stall. Car goes brilliantly in between with no issues whatsoever. Mine is Fiesta Econetic 65 plate. 

I’m having this same issue with 2017 eco boost we just purchased, struggling to find a reason for it beginning to think this is why previous owner got rid! 

@Luke4efc gave the most probable cause of the fault 21st August 2021.

The clutch slave cylinder seals are leaking causing the clutch to slowly engage even while stile holding the pedal down.