Hey there everyone, let me cut to the chase. I have a 2016 ford fiesta 1.0L eco boost with about 75,000 miles on the dash. Recently I've been encountering a really strange issue with the manual gear box. Sometimes when I'm trying to shift from 1st to 2nd gear the gear stick resists alot, if I force it too much I hear a fast spinning gear grind before I even exit first gear. When this happens I push the gear stick back into first take my foot off the clutch pedal and then try again and voila it works perfectly fine afterwards and I can shift gears without any issues. This happens very inconsistently some drives it never happens but other times it happens at least once in a drive.

Also it feels as if the only time the gearbox will start shifting normally is after I hear the gear grind noise via forcing it as I explain in the recent experience I had below:

One time when I felt the same resistance from shifting from 1st to 2nd to avoid hearing that horrible gear grind noise I didn't force the gear stick at all. I simply put the gear back into first and then tried to repeat the process by letting go of the clutch and then pressing it again, but this time it was still resisting me after repeating the clutch process. So instead I drove in first for a while and tried again, this time I forced it into 2nd but there was no gear grind it was just resisting me alot, the resistance continued into third and eventually I stopped with the engine still running and went through the gears, when I put it into 4th I then heard a brief gear grind sound and then after the gearbox worked fine again. Almost as if the gear box remains "sticky" until that gear grind sound is emitted.

Does anyone have any idea what this could possibly be and how I can get it fixed. Any info would be incredibly helpful. Chat gpt is saying it's an issue with the clutch slave cylinder/clutch hydraulics.

Being a 1.0 EcoBoost the synchronizer rings of the transmission are most likely worn out. This is a well known problem on the 5-speed IB5 transmission in combination with the 1.0 EcoBoost.

Either have your own transmission rebuilt or find yourself a replacement transmission. The problems seem to be in the early stages so there is a considerate chance that replacing the 2nd gear synchronizer rings will solve the problem. Most of the costs however will be for labor.

1 hour ago, JW1982 said:

Being a 1.0 EcoBoost the synchronizer rings of the transmission are most likely worn out. This is a well known problem on the 5-speed IB5 transmission in combination with the 1.0 EcoBoost.

Either have your own transmission rebuilt or find yourself a replacement transmission. The problems seem to be in the early stages so there is a considerate chance that replacing the 2nd gear synchronizer rings will solve the problem. Most of the costs however will be for labor.

But I hear the gear grind if I force the stick out of first gear. As in if I try to go into neutral instead of 2nd I'd still hear it.

Your problem seems to be in the synchronizer rings between 1st and 2nd gear.

This is extremely common since 1st and 2nd gear suffer the most from the relative high torque of the 1.0 EcoBoost. This is also the reason that torque is already limited in 1st and 2nd gear (which unfortunately is not enough).

This is an extremely common problem.