Hi All,

This is my first post here, as it is my first ever Ford I have owned. I recently decided the 15 years I have piled into BMW PCP plans are a money pit and I never ever owned a car, so I moved away and bought myself a Ford Focus EcoBoost ST Line with 28k miles on the clock.

I was really happy with the car in the day one of ownership, however on day two I pulled onto the motorway as normal and couldn’t get the car into third gear, I also couldn’t  get it back into any other gear as the clutch pedal was stuck to the floor, as I rolled to around 10 mph in a panic effort as I had a lorry virtually in my boot flashing me,  it did clunk back into second and I managed to get home in the same gear. When I got back I could see the clutch pedal was right down, no gears would engage. I left the car for an hour and called the company I bought it from, they called the RAC out. Whilst waiting I looked again and pulled the clutch up with my hand and it then kind of sprang back into position. The RAC came out and it’s just working again… they couldn’t find fault.

I’m in a kind of strange place as I can return the car for a refund as in one breath I am nervous it will do it again, in the second breath I do like the car a lot and hope it was just an anomaly and be fine from here on out.

Has anyone else had this issue? I have googled it and seen other similar, but not any that resulted in it just springing back with me manually pulling it and then working again. Any advice, info or anything would be massively helpful as I’m at a crossroads with what to do with the car… To note I did buy it from a UK online company, one of these new order online, deliver to your door… so it could have been sat in storage for some time. 

Thanks!

6 minutes ago, MikePancake said:

To note I did buy it from a UK online company, one of these new order online, deliver to your door…

Hi Luke, lots of cars that have very strange issues often seem to find there way to those sort of companies. If you were by some miracle able to contact the previous owner/driver, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they also had this problem.

18 minutes ago, MikePancake said:

II’m in a kind of strange place as I can return the car for a refund ...

 

I must confess, in your situation, I would get a refund. The car is 'new' to you and your confidence has been shot - imagine if that truck behind you hadn't slowed down! You have no emotional attachment to the car as of yet, and you will always have in the back of your mind when driving that it could happen again.

Unofix is right, it's highly likely it has happened before in the car, and if you'd have had it a few years you may be more in the mindset of diagnosing what caused such a dramatic fault, but like I said, if it were me, I'd get a refund and get another car that won't potentially kill you so soon after owning it...

1 hour ago, MikePancake said:

I had a lorry virtually in my boot flashing me

Typical bl00dy truck driver, he must have realised you had a problem but the b*ggers can't stand anything slowing them down.

I'm with Stephen, if the car's done it once it's almost certain to do it again. Get rid.

Yep..+1 from me...change it while you can and swap it for another one. I have an identical car but have never had any issues with it whatsoever and have now owned it for nearly 3 years and I'm sure there will be plenty of others on here who are very happy with theirs too.

Thanks for your responses all, really appreciated. I think the consensus is it has to go. Just seems such an odd thing that happened, I’ve been out in it this morning to test and it’s all good, yesterday… with whatever it was I don’t think I’ll understand. 

This is a  common clutch problem on the Ford/Getrag B6 gearbox. The problem is caused by a defective slave cilinder (internal leak).

Just have the clutch and slave cilinder replaced under warranty and the car will be perfectly fine.

2 minutes ago, JW1982 said:

This is a  common clutch problem on the Ford/Getrag B6 gearbox. The problem is caused by a defective slave cilinder (internal leak).

Just have the clutch and slave cilinder replaced under warranty and the car will be perfectly fine.

Thank you, this is interesting. And same symptoms? As in it failed and now seems ok, will it likely deteriorate?

I kind of wish it was totally broken as then I would have confidence in the warranty - it seems more common than not that unless a garage find it to be completely broken they won’t repair under warranty. 

Not being able to shift while the clutch pedal is stuck to the floor is a well known problem on a Focus MK3/MK3.5 with the Ford/Getrag B6 gearbox. Pulling the clutch pedal back up by hand (or by foot) solves the problem temporarily.

35 minutes ago, JW1982 said:

Not being able to shift while the clutch pedal is stuck to the floor is a well known problem on a Focus MK3/MK3.5 with the Ford/Getrag B6 gearbox. Pulling the clutch pedal back up by hand (or by foot) solves the problem temporarily.

Ok so yes this is exactly the issue, I just did a 30 mile round trip, for the first 20 miles everything was perfect… then sitting in a queue for traffic lights and slowly edging forward to move to second the pedal was right at the floor again, I used my foot to pull it up and it popped back into position and then was fine all the way home. 
 

I guess I cannot ignore it as you said it will deteriorate, it’s a shame it’s not a static constant issue as my main worry is getting into a “it’s fine” battle with the warranty side of things. 

Thanks again everyone - the car is being returned. Appreciated. 

I have exactly the same problem. A lot of people do. It seems to be ware and tare on the seals in the master and slave cylinders. This is a safety issue so ford should pay for this repair. Easy to correct - just pull up the clutch pedal fixes the problem TEMPORARILY.