Evening all, 

I've recently acquired a 2013 focus estate 1.6 tdci with 145k on it from my stepdad. 

He's decided to buy another car as there's a couple of issues with it and he fancied a change so I've given him £400 for it. 

First up and the most pressing issue, it has a constant whirring/bearing noise from the gearbox whenever there's drive, dip the clutch and the noise stops, also in certain gears at around 50 to 60mph there's a horrible judder/shaking through the steering wheel/wheels. 

The noise almost sounds like your typical failed clutch release bearing but that wouldn't cover the judder issue, dmf failure is a possibility but again not sure it'd cause the wheel vibration. 

The other issue I've read of is the gearbox top bearing failing, this is probably my favourite suspect right now, how common an issue is it? I've found a cheap second hand gearbox locally so will probably fit that just need to check part numbers as it's from a 2011 car. 

The other issue the car has that I need to deal with is in March it failed it's mot as the drl stopped working in the nearside light and it also acts as the parking light, as he was unable to find a reasonable price xenon light at the time my stepdad replaced both lights with a set of halogen lights, these were fine for the mot but now the car has numerous faults for having the wrong lights fitted. 

Is the drl failure a common issue with a known solution? My guess at the minute is it's something inside the light and I'll likely need to split it to repair but here's hoping.

Sorry for the long post but hopefully the amount of information helps with giving me some advice. 

Thanks

Chris

So the noise is most likely a failed throwout bearing. The judder sounds very much like what I had when the intermediate shafter bearing on the long CV axle failed on my old MK3.5. The DRL failure is not uncommon, it's usually the LED driver board and yes it does require splitting the headlight and I'd very much say buy new headlights that are xenon like the originals, and if it's only one, they don't have to be replaced as a pair. There are also places that specialise in refurbishment of headlights so give them a try they may be cheaper.

I'm not sure it is the throw out bearing, I've done a few clutches in my time and it just doesn't seem quite the right noise, but I've just had a look and I can get a 3 piece sachs clutch kit for £150 and the driveshaft bearing for £20 so I'll, get them both anyway along with the gearbox for £100 I don't think I'll lose out for chucking £300 at it

So today's the day for the clutch. 

Someone's been at it before, the awkward bellhousing bolt up by the dpf was half out. 

It's taken me just over 2.5 hours to get the box out and belows a couple of videos of what I've found, 

 

So @Neb_engineer it's seems you were right, the release bearing is definitely buggered and so is the dmf. 

Both gearboxes feel the same so their either both goosed or both ok so I'm going to refit the original and see where that leaves me, if it's still noisy I then I'll know it's the box and it's not a big drama to remove it again. 

Thanks

Chris. 

Your lucky you caught that like that, your dmf hadn't fully let go (the carnage from that usual means the bell housing becomes unsalvageable)

Well those chickens may have been counted early.

After a pig of a day working on the car which included an unscheduled o/s lower suspension arm and track rod end the noise is still there albeit not quite as loud so it looks like I should of fitted the replacement gearbox I've got. 

I've also found the inner cv joint on the n/s needs replacing, cv grease had been finding it's way past the big boot clip so I stripped it to clean and reseal but upon doing so found one of the cv bearings is completely missing all of it's needle rollers and they were mostly smashed up in the bottom of the joint, I've ordered a complete replacement drive shaft, I'll fit that before taking the gearbox out again in the vain hope that it's the cv joint grinding away but I'm not hopeful. 

Oh well, reckon I can get the boxes swapped in under 4 hours now I've done it once. 

Do you have any history of the car the other box came from?  The input shaft bearings wear so commonly on these I wouldn't automatically trust a scrapyard box to be any better.

15 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Do you have any history of the car the other box came from?  The input shaft bearings wear so commonly on these I wouldn't automatically trust a scrapyard box to be any better.

Nope no idea so this morning I made the decision I'm going to strip the spare box and rebuild it, a full bearing kit is £240 I'll spread it over 4 months with PayPal so I'll not notice it missing from the bank balance and I don't really want to be doing the job a third time, you win some you lose some it comes with buying cheap cars. 

On 11/14/2025 at 11:57 PM, thomp1983 said:

Evening all, 

I've recently acquired a 2013 focus estate 1.6 tdci with 145k on it from my stepdad. 

He's decided to buy another car as there's a couple of issues with it and he fancied a change so I've given him £400 for it. 

First up and the most pressing issue, it has a constant whirring/bearing noise from the gearbox whenever there's drive, dip the clutch and the noise stops, also in certain gears at around 50 to 60mph there's a horrible judder/shaking through the steering wheel/wheels. 

The noise almost sounds like your typical failed clutch release bearing but that wouldn't cover the judder issue, dmf failure is a possibility but again not sure it'd cause the wheel vibration. 

The other issue I've read of is the gearbox top bearing failing, this is probably my favourite suspect right now, how common an issue is it? I've found a cheap second hand gearbox locally so will probably fit that just need to check part numbers as it's from a 2011 car. 

The other issue the car has that I need to deal with is in March it failed it's mot as the drl stopped working in the nearside light and it also acts as the parking light, as he was unable to find a reasonable price xenon light at the time my stepdad replaced both lights with a set of halogen lights, these were fine for the mot but now the car has numerous faults for having the wrong lights fitted. 

Is the drl failure a common issue with a known solution? My guess at the minute is it's something inside the light and I'll likely need to split it to repair but here's hoping.

Sorry for the long post but hopefully the amount of information helps with giving me some advice. 

Thanks

Chris

Just on your headlight issue. I had an issue with my xenons on my mk3 2011 1.6 tdci Titanium. They were useless. It seems reflectors are a common failure on them. I got second hand halogen lights & tbh I found the output a huge improvement & for the cost of knew xenons I didn't see the value on a cheap car. If you get forscan you can tell the car it has different headlights & this clears any errors or faults (well it did for me)

 

I'd be interested to find if any of your work fixes the juddering. Mine has this although admittedly has improved with some relatively cheap fixes. Engine & Gearbox mounts replaced along with both lower control arms. It's made a big difference but I still get a strong juddering in higher gears under load. 

So this week I've made a start on looking at the spare gearbox, 

The offending bearing is generally the one on the left above, I've opted to replace both. 

Someone has been in this box before, the sealant joining the case halfs definitely wasn't factory and as you can see from the left bearing retaining screw it's been rubbing on something at some point. 

I stripped the internals and gave everything a thorough going over with brake cleaner so I could inspect it all properly,

everything is in good condition apart from the diff bearings which feel rough when rotated in their races so they'll be replaced.

I took the gear stacks and diff into work tonight so I could use a hydraulic puller and press to replace the bearings. 

The new bearings came off and pressed on easily, the diff was a different matter the inner races didn't want to come off so required cutting off. 

Caught the shaft slightly with the grinder but it'll not affect anything once the new bearings are on. 

That's as far as I can go for now as I need to wait for the new diff bearings to arrive. 

Thanks

Chris. 

So ran into a bit of a delay with this, I didn't want to pay £150 ford want for the oem diff bearings so using the bearings fitted I managed to identify them as lm29749/711/qcl7cva607 bearings, I found some online and ordered them only to receive an email a week later to say couldn't supply them. 

On the 23rd I found simply bearings had them so ordered them and they arrived on the 27th for a total of £85. 

Took the cases into work after Xmas as its been quiet and gave them a clean, there not perfect but at least I can handle them now without leaving oily finger prints everywhere. I also used the work press to fit the diff bearings but forgot to take a picture of them fitted. 

This afternoon I've refitted all the internals back into the cases and sealed it all up, now I've just got to fit it to the car along with the new driveshaft which may be sometime this week if not next.

Chris. 

So I had a few, spare hours this evening so made a start on it, 

Got the car in the garage which is a rarity in itself, 95% of stuff I do is on the drive

Old box out, 

New box in, it's got a couple of bolts holding it to the engine and is on the passenger side mount. 

That'll be it till Friday, off to winter wonderland tomorrow with our daughter, but it's a start. 

Chris. 

So I finished putting this back together today and i'm now glad to say I have a quiet gearbox and the vibrations gone, unfortunately I'll never know if it was the bearings or the driveshaft causing the vibration but either way it's fixed. 

At some point in the future I may strip the old gearbox down and see how bad it is.

I also had a headlight bulb fail a couple of weeks ago so replaced both of them with some of Halfords 200% brighter bulbs and there pretty good to be honest, given that the xenons weren't great when new by all accounts I think I'm going to keep the non xenon units fitted and change the cars configuration with forscan to remove the errors I get at every start up, one day I may look at splitting the old xenon but it won't be anytime soon. 

Chris.