Hi all,

Im new here I have myself a Blue Ford Finesse 04 - 1.25 3DR petrol.

Ive had it roughly a year now with no issues what so ever, but over the weekend i had some strange things happen and now its impossible to drive my car.

Friday Night i got in car and the Rev counter wasnt working, i set off and then the engine management light came on which was an even bigger worry. I went to the petrol station filled up my car and started the Engine the rev counter still wasnt working but the engine management light had gone off.

Got up saturday and all was fine rev counter working and no engine management light, needless to say i didnt think anything of it and drove my car all weekend.

Got up this morning and set off to work to find that i could drive and go up gear but if i wanted to the change down gear this was impossible i could not go down gear with brute force or having to stop completly then i could select gear at ease and start driving again with no issues until i wanted to go down gear again.

I was wondering if any of you guys/girls on here know what might be wrong with this and roughly how much it will set me back. im expecting a call from Ford tomorrow as their service department is now closed :( but any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you

Matt

It sounds like a bad synchronizer, repair costs look like they aren't cheap running around $500-$1000 or more (I don't know the conversion to pounds but I don't expect it to be good news).As a temporary fix you might be able to rev the engine up to the correct RPM for the speed you're going and shift it in that way - this is how 'heavy heavy duty' trucks shift gears with manual gearboxes. This is where the saying "If you can't find it grind it" came from, so be careful. It's a bit of a chore to shift this way, push the clutch halfway down, shift to neutral, let the clutch back up. Adjust engine RPM to the speed needed for the desired gear, push clutch back down and shift into the new gear. It's called double clutching. Note that i'm not at all familiar with a Ford manual transmission, the last manual shift vehicle I drove was a 40 ton truck. It's possible your Ford is a completely different setup that won't allow double clutching anyway.

I just saw on Wikipedia that Heavy-Heavy duty trucks / Class 8 / Semi (whatever you want to call the big ones with 18 or more wheels) use synchronizers in Europe, seems that only Americans are crazy enough to keep using such outdated technology. I heard you can get another few hundred pounds of freight into a truck if you leave off the synchronizer..