SMax auto is slow to shift down to 1st gear

[SMaxJohnni]

Hello - I hope someone can help. I have a 2013 SMax 2.0DCI Titanium, 80,000 miles. I bought it second hand and don’t know its gearbox service history. I had the gearbox oil changed at about 72,000. In D it seems slow to change down to 1st gear e.g. when approaching a T junction and slowing to <10mph - it stays in 2nd gear and then the gearbox judders when I accelerate. If I put it in S and manually change down to 1st, there’s no judder. This says to me that there’s a mechtronic problem rather than a gearbox problem, but the local auto gearbox specialist says the clutch is going and the Ford dealer won’t commit to an opinion. Is anyone able to give some advice?

Many thanks

John

[unofix]

Using FORScan put the TCM through the re-teach procedure.

[Moondog]

Is it a Powershift box?  If so there might not be anything wrong with it.  It happens to me sometimes at junctions, you slow right down, then see a gap and you want to go quickly.  The box in in second so you don’t get away as quickly as you want, so you press the accelerator a bit more which prompts a rough change into first. My car has always done this.  I have just regarded it as a feature of the Powershift box which otherwise I like.

[SMaxJohnni]

On 8/19/2022 at 6:28 PM, unofix said:

Using FORScan put the TCM through the re-teach procedure.

Thank you - I’ll have a look at that. Both Ford and the indie garage said resetting might make it worse. If there’s nothing actually wrong with the gearbox, I’m happy to live with it.

[SMaxJohnni]

18 hours ago, Moondog said:

Is it a Powershift box?  If so there might not be anything wrong with it.  It happens to me sometimes at junctions, you slow right down, then see a gap and you want to go quickly.  The box in in second so you don’t get away as quickly as you want, so you press the accelerator a bit more which prompts a rough change into first. My car has always done this.  I have just regarded it as a feature of the Powershift box which otherwise I like.

Thank you. Yes, it’s a Powershift. I haven’t tried the extra kick - I’ve just put it into S and changed down manually, which isn’t a great hardship. If there’s nothing wrong with the gearbox itself - that’s my only concern - then I’ll live with this. As you say, it’s minor. I thought it could be just a speed or load sensor that needs changing but that doesn’t appear to be an option.

[DaveT70]

Changing manually or automatically is the same action inside the gearbox so you must have a slight comms fault as the automatic signal is late, but the manual one is fine.

S-Max and Galaxies have a tendency to snap comms wires to the transmission in the large multi-connector in the LF front wheel arch, get this checked first

Then, remove all the earth straps from the body, (in the engine bay), clean the paint from the body where the earth eyelet sits, grease and re-fit.

How old is the battery? If you know it's older than 5 years, change it

Then perform a relearn and, hopefully, the problem will be sorted

I would also, strongly, recommend getting the PCM & TCM software updated

 

[SMaxJohnni]

5 hours ago, DaveT70 said:

Changing manually or automatically is the same action inside the gearbox so you must have a slight comms fault as the automatic signal is late, but the manual one is fine.

S-Max and Galaxies have a tendency to snap comms wires to the transmission in the large multi-connector in the LF front wheel arch, get this checked first

Then, remove all the earth straps from the body, (in the engine bay), clean the paint from the body where the earth eyelet sits, grease and re-fit.

How old is the battery? If you know it's older than 5 years, change it

Then perform a relearn and, hopefully, the problem will be sorted

I would also, strongly, recommend getting the PCM & TCM software updated

 

Thank you, very helpful - I’ll get in to this.

[SMaxJohnni]

Thank you all for your help. I’d omitted to mention what has turned out to be the most important thing - that the garage that changed the gearbox oil, an auto gearbox specialist that came highly recommended, put a couple of tubes of Lubegard Shudderfixx in with the new oil. Because I believed what I was told - that the clutch was on its way out - and because it took some time after the oil change for the symptoms to appear, it didn’t immediately occur to me that the additive was the problem. But the symptoms didn’t fit with a worn clutch, and increasingly fitted with the addition of a low-friction fluid coating the clutch and messing up the load-sensor feedback loop which should have been prompting a change down to 1st gear. So I had the gearbox oil changed by Ford a couple of weeks ago and, hey presto, everything is on the mend, getting better with every mile. Thank you all again for your suggestions and sorry for missing out some critical info. I’ll remember your tips in case I have a similar problem in future … without the Shudderfixx!

[gerilege]

I drove a car with this spec between 2014-2018 for 50000 miles and as Moondog wrote above, it behaved like that in slow-rolling T-junctions from new, mile 0. It took a while to get used to it. You press the pedal, hardly anything happens, you push hence harder, big pause, it would then rev up to 3000, on more small pause and then it let's the clutch go and it will go like crazy.

[SMaxJohnni]

Thank you gerilege - very reassuring