It is time to tell the story of the Ford Focus. It all began in late summer of 2021 when my daughter called for help because her car wouldn’t engage in gear after parking it in a restaurant parking lot. I assumed the problem was going to be an issue with the transmission. Since I didn’t live in the area anymore I was at a loss about how best to help her. I suggested she have it towed to a transmission shop I used years prior. I had no idea what I was in for. She called a tow truck and had the car towed to the shop. I called first thing in the morning to make sure the car arrived and to talk to someone about the symptoms. Frank listened to my story and immediately told me he thought it was going to need a full rebuild. He told me that these Ford Focus transmissions were notorious for failing. I asked for a quote but until his guys could take a look he wouldn’t be able to give me that quote.
Frank, friend or foe?
Days go by without hearing from Frank. My daughter is using ride share services to commute to and from work but it is very expensive to live by ride share alone. I called the shop to speak with Frank and somewhere during that week we actually connected. He told me it was in fact going to need a full rebuild but he was having a hard time tracking down some of the parts they needed. He explained the situation with these transmissions and mentioned that over 87,000 people are waiting on a backlog for the Transmission Control Module. He wasn’t able to give me a quote but he did tell me we’re talking about over $4500 and he needed more time to hunt down the parts. I started to wonder if the car was worth repairing. A quick blue book search told me it was the right decision.
I am a curious person so after I finished my call with Frank I started doing some research on the Ford Focus. There is in fact a problem with these transmissions. The problem affects these dual clutch automatic transmissions. I’ve added several links below referring to the issue.
- https://carfromjapan.com/article/car-review/ford-focus-transmission-recall/
- https://lemonlawexperts.com/ford-transmission-settlement-update/
- https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/2019/07/11/ford-motors-knew-focus-fiesta-had-flawed-transmission-sold-them-anyway-car-recall/1704480001/
After reading these materials I was convinced Frank was telling me the truth. I was ready to fix the car but we were still short parts. The pressure to get another car began to grow. After a few more days Frank called again and offered to replace the transmission with a used transmission for $5,500. This equipment had more miles on it than the original and it didn’t feel right. I declined the offer and told Frank that I would be up to pick up the car. Frank seemed worried about me taking the car back and tried offering a pathetic discount. At this point in the ordeal my patience with Frank was gone. You have to understand how difficult it has been to get hold of this guy. I told him I was going to fix it myself. I think he thought I couldn’t do it. I rented a trailer and drove to his shop and picked up the car. Thankfully there was just enough response from the transmission to get the car up on the trailer. I put the car in my workshop and it sat there for months while I continued to research the problem and pumped myself to change that transmission.
Car Shopping during COVID
Anyone who was forced to buy a car during COVID understands the pain. The used car market was insane because of the lack of workers to make new cars and lack of parts to make those cars. This supply problem sent the new car prices sky high. In parallel the used market also blew up. Interestingly the used car prices out paced new car prices and in some cases used cars were being sold for more than a new one. I spent hours researching the used car market in DFW for a sub $10k car so my daughter had a ride while her car was not functioning. I finally found a 2013 Kia Rio with 104k miles just under $10k. I had no choice but to pay probably double what the car should have been worth. I didn’t know about the Kia Rio theft problem but it also didn’t really matter because there was no other choices. At least my daughter would have a ride.
You Tube Videos
I watched hours and hours of video covering how to fix a Focus transmission. Some are better than others. I really appreciate the people who make these videos. They are very helpful. About 10 hours into research I ran across the lynch pin video. The sound the car is making in the video was exactly the same sound my daughter’s car was making. This single video changed the story from being a transmission repair to a part swap. I ordered two motors part number AE8Z7C604a from ford.oempartsonline.com for about $217. The setup requires 2 motors. Only one was broken but I thought it was best to go ahead and replace both.
Replacing the Actuators
Replacing these parts was probably the easiest part of the job. The car was outside of my shop so I couldn’t use my lift. Instead I used a manual hand jack to lift the driver wheel off the ground to give me enough clearance to remove the bottom side actuator. These required torx bits to remove. These motors screwed into plastic receivers so it was important not to over tighten the screws during reattachment. The top actuator was hidden under the air box so I had to remove that before removing the old motor. Prior I had removed the battery to keep it from being drained by the clock. I think it took me all of an hour to replace both motors and put the air box back together as well as reinstall the battery for a test run. The car worked marvelously.
Making Marg Road Worthy
Since the car sat for months it eventually fell out of registration and I had stopped the insurance coverage while it was in storage. Renewing insurance was easy and only required a phone call to get liability setup. She needed new tires too. I decided to buy from Walmart since I’m out in rural America where they don’t have a discount tire or NTB locally. In fact the tire shops are all independent and I’m sure I would have gotten a decent deal but I wanted a warranty and I wanted easy access for my daughter in case anything went wrong. I also don’t like paying a premium for tires. Instead I like to find mid brand tires that balance durability, performance and price. I didn’t realize that many of the tire brands that are sold by Walmart are Chinese brands. I didn’t want to buy anything from China so I had to do a little research here to find a reasonable brand. I ended up opting for Cosmo RC-17 All Season and paid about $80 per tire before installation costs. Cosmo tires are made by Thailand by Zhongce Rubber (Thailand) Co. I liked the idea of having Walmart do the install and service the warranty because Walmart is everywhere. Plus the purchase process was really easy. I just wish Walmart would have also done the inspection but we had to take the car to a quick lube place to get that done.
Close But No Cigar
Marg was ready we thought but no it wasn’t to be. While getting the car road worthy we discovered the AC system had stopped working. No cold air. In fact it was blowing 133 degree air. Back into research mode. I watched hours of videos specifically covering the 2013 Ford Focus. There were no codes but I knew the clutch was working because I could hear it engage and then disengage immediately. I was pretty sure that was the problem but what was causing it? Incidentally the car also began making a terrible sound from the blower motor. Having the fan on max was so loud that it was difficult concentrating on driving. I decided to take apart the dashboard to get to the AC fan motor. This was a difficult job requiring me to contort my body to access the screws which were very difficult to see. I remember one screw only being visible through a hole about the size of a quarter. I think it took me well over 6 hours to remove the fan motor only to discover the motor isn’t broken. I have no idea what was causing that sound but I vacuumed out the system and reinstalled the fan and fan cage. Testing the fan again didn’t produce that loud noise, it was gone whatever that was. Now back to the AC problem. I decided to take a chance and I replaced the low pressure AC switch. I was able to find a relatively inexpensive switch from RockAuto. Part oem number 4673935 for about $17. The switch took 10 minutes to install and after adjusting the charge pressure I had achieved cold air.
Finally Done
I finally had the car completed and was ready to give it back to my daughter. As part of the final preparation I plugged up my code reader to investigate the check engine light. The car had 4 codes in memory. All of them were from the prior problems but funny enough the first code on the list was the actual problem with the “transmission”. Lesson learned here, always check the codes and perhaps I could have avoided all the drama from Frank. Lol, I learned so much from this project.