Hi everyone,

I recently bought a used MK4 Ford Focus Active 1.0 Ecoboost (Petrol), and while I'm generally happy with how responsive the car feels, there's one thing that's been bothering me: the gear lever.

Compared to my MK3.5 Focus (which I still own), the gear lever on the MK4 feels noticeably looser. There’s a noticeable amount of back-and-forth play and even some shaking when in neutral or in certain gears.

I brought it up with my mechanic, but he assured me that this is normal behavior for the MK4. However, it still doesn’t feel quite right to me, especially given how solid and precise the gear lever feels on my MK3.5 (also 1.0L engine).

Has anyone else noticed this with their MK4 Focus? Is this actually a design difference between the MK3.5 and MK4, or could it indicate a problem with the shifter mechanism or linkages?

Note: The car has ~68.000KM with regular maintenance on the Ford official dealer shop.

Yes, Mk3 was better. In a lot of ways

The gearbox difference depends on which power level engine you have.

If you had a tight gearbox on the Mk3 1.0 I'm guessing that was the 6 speed on a 125ps engine?  I never found the 5 speed IB5 to be particularly tight.

The 6 speed on the Mk4 was an updated version of the IB5 for the MHEV's, though I'm not sure which one was used on non-MHEV's.

Mine is the non-MHEV version 1.0 6 speed manual gearbox (2018-2019 focus active version).
Here is a video reference:
 

 

Yeah, I think that is the 6MX65 gearbox, same as the MHEV's.  That amount of movement is fairly normal.  You can try changing the linkage bush on the gearbox through it'll never be a 'solid' gearbox.

I have a late 2018 mk4 1.0 (125) and also had the same but with the 1.5 engine as a courtesy car for a few days. My understanding is that the gearbox in my 1.0(125) engined car is considered the inferior of the two but I actually prefer it. The 1.5 gearbox just felt indistinct whereas the one in my 1.0 has a nice, definite "pop" when you change gear, kind of like you just guide the stick into the right area and then it "pops" itself into the correct gear. I think one thing that's for sure about the mk4 focus is that they differ considerably from one to another (even if they are supposedly the same spec).