I'm just weighing my options up here. The last MOT and service (July) I complained that my car was having some hesitation here and there. I had these same symptoms when the car was around 3 years old and at 20k. It necessitated having the dry clutch pack and whatever else replaced under warranty. The symptoms of then are now presenting again and it's been getting worse since July. There was a scary incident on a roundabout yesterday where it just seemed to cut power entirely while the gearbox decided what gear it fancied. So it really is coming to a point where I need to take a view on it. While I'm happy to keep going for another while just being careful to drive like an old man, it is obviously getting worse.

It has a full dealer service history. Every stamp, from Gates Ford. It's never been to any other garage. In July, the tech said that while he can't recreate the problem, it does sound like the beginning of the TCM breaking down. if it is TCM breakdown I can expect a bill of around £2000 to put it all right.

So I guess the biggest question I have is that given it has a full service history and the powershift has known problems, how successful am I likely to be in getting Ford to foot some of that bill?

Otherwise, the car is fine. It's on 90k miles, I do have the dreaded water in the spare wheel well issue but planning on getting busy with a silicone gun at some point to try and fix that myself (typical ford really).

If it's me footing the full bill, I honestly don't think I will go for it. Having perused Ford's offerings and the whole ecoboom thing, Ford will not be my next car for sure. Ideally I would like to keep what I have running, but if it's a £2k bill and a middle finger from Ford, think it may be the end of the road for me.

It's not always TCM breakdown, it's breakdown in communications from the TCM to the transmission. Broken COMMS wires, especially on Focus occur where the harness travels past the main battery.

 

Given the age and the mileage of the vehicle I'd tend to go with Dave's thoughts that it could well be the wiring to the TCM which I know from personal experience does fail.

The Ford harness is generally too short which results in a lot of stress on the wires in to the plugs. You need to carefully inspect the wiring to the TCM connectors and even remove the back shells of the plugs to check inside for broken or damaged wires.

See my old post below for photos of what you can expect to find.

On 4/15/2022 at 2:04 PM, unofix said:

Well @TomsFocus "great minds think alike"

So today I decided to investigate the two connectors for the TCM. To gain as much access as possible I fully removed the airbox as you earlier suggested. Then from under the wheel arch I disconnected the 'Red' connector and pulled the harness and connector up in to the engine bay. Take a look at the photos to see what I found........

 

Blimey. I will certainly get out and check out this.

 

Out of interest, what did you do? Did you repair the wiring in place (solder and heatshink I assume?) or did you replace the whole harness? Is that a DIY job?

I soldered together the broken wire, remembering to put the heatshrink sleeve on first of course 😉  It took a bit of cleaning as the ends of the wire had corroded and it was limited as to how much I could cut them back.

The other wires the insulation had worn through but the actual copper wire was undamaged. So very carefully I used insulating tape and wrapped each of the damaged wires.

The car's automatic gearbox had been acting very odd for a good few weeks before we reached the major failure point. Once the wires were repaired and the car put back together it was necessary to do a full reteach of the TCM using FORScan as the gearbox had totally lost the plot.

After the TCM had completed the 'Drum' relearn everything was back to normal and the gear changes were better than they had ever been in the time we had owned the car so I suspect that the issue had been developing for a number of years.

I see. I mean, soldering a few wires together I can handle (electronic engineer by trade). I would worry if there is further damage to the loom but of course, who can know without looking.

I don't however have FORScan or anything like that. Is that something that is workshop only?

You need to get FORScan (it's free for laptop use), you will also need the vLinker FS cable (not free).

FORScan: https://forscan.org/download.html

vLinker FS cable: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vgate-vLinker-Adapter-FORScan-MS-CAN/dp/B0952P4MLP/ref=asc_df_B0952P4MLP/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=534732308385&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17133393462974564734&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006688&hvtargid=pla-1430824679036&psc=1

On 11/11/2022 at 12:33 PM, JonSick said:

Out of interest, what did you do? Did you repair the wiring in place (solder and heatshink I assume?) or did you replace the whole harness? Is that a DIY job?

Yes, just trace the wire back until you find good, clean wire and just replace/splice that section