Ford Focus LX 2001 Gearbox/clutch problems

DeanM

Hi everyone,

So car mentioned in the title is my first car. have had it about 2 months. bought it from a garage in cork. 140k miles on it. NCT'd till june.

I was driving this evening and had some issues and was hoping that maybe people on here with the knowledge might have some idea the problems are?

I was driving from wexford to cork (did the opposite saturday) and was about 30km from cork when i came to another round about. this is what i can recall from it.

Passed through the roundabout and was picking up speed again. went from 2nd to 3rd gear. then 3rd gaer to 4th gear. then when i was going to change to 5th gear, i had some trouble with it and when it went into gear it seemed to slow the car down a bit and the revs jumped up a bot. It was as if i had gone to 3rd gear instead by mistake but i had gone to 5th gear. i tried to go to 5th gear again and noticed that when i put it into 5th, the gear stick went back to the middle! I was a little alarmed that the gear stick could move when it was in gear, i tested moving the gear stick and it could move about while it was supposed to be in gear. It was also apparent that it was not going to be going into 5th gear! I could get it to 100km/h but it was revving very high, about 4-4.5k. I decided that the best i could do was to just try get it home! so I got it back to the city anyway, although at fairly high revs. I hope this isn't too bad for the engine!

When i got back to the city i needed to use lower gears and found the behaviour very odd/unpredictable. taking off was hit or miss sometimes but managed to get it into gear and was able to take off and go throught the gears as normal (or as close to it). sometimes taking off it would go as it normally would but then would start to shudder, going to second didnt realy change anything but going BACK to 1st seemed like it was behaving as second gear!

Its hard to describe it to be honest. I don't even know for certain if what i described is exactly what happened, i wasn't concentrating so much on remembering the details as i was on not causing an obstruction!

There was NO grinding of gears or clutch at all! So i don't know if it is clutch or if it might be the gear box. I thought gear box since the gear stick could move even when in gear! but i really dont know! so any ideas or advice would be appreciated!

Thanks and regards,

PS: how much would it generally cost for a gear box change, or a clutch change?

Hal1

Did the garage give you a warranty at all?

DeanM

Nope, unfortunately not! I asked about a warranty and they said they only do warranties on cars from 2005 or newer and not on cars of that age. Thinking that I probably should have insisted!

kirving

DeanM wrote: »

Nope, unfortunately not! I asked about a warranty and they said they only do warranties on cars from 2005 or newer and not on cars of that age. Thinking that I probably should have insisted!

I don't really know, but it sounds like a gear linkage maybe?

You're entitled to some kind of warranty, regardless of what the garage have said.Like if the engine was buring a lot of oil a week after you got it, or a wheel fell off.
You could also destroy a clutch in 20 minutes if you tried. Basically what it comes down to is what's regarded as reasonable and fair.

DeanM

Hi Kevin, I just googled it to see what the symptoms are. Sounds like you could be right. Some of the symptoms seemed to match but i couldnt say for sure.

True I suppose! Someone could drive away and grind the sh*t out of the gears! In which case, the garage wouldn't be at fault and shouldn't be expected to cover the damage. I've read up on gear linkage and apparently the ball jointof the lingage is made of plastic that wears out and can eventually pop out or linkage becomes loose etc. If that was indeed the problem, then it wouldn't be driver or garage's fault. so i guess it would depend on the cost maybe? I guess i'll just have to see what happens!

DeanM

So this morning I drove it to work, the garage is next to work so will drop it in when they open.

i was able to use 1st and 2nd gears fine. when i went to go to 3rd gear it wouldnt go in. It felt like there was nowhere for it to go. so i stuck to second gear. when i got to work i tried reverse gear to see how it would react. still went forward! so i think it was still in 1st gear.

Hope this doesn't cost too much! The clutch is fine since i was able to use it this morning without any problem. Since i was able to change from first to second....i'm hoping that means the gearbox is ok??? It seems like the gear linkage is most likely the problem, but i don't know, could still be a gear box issue. If the gear box was gone, would it still work for some gears? and would it still slot into each gear position fine? or would it be loose and move freely?

Plug

I think I know what it is. There is a little spring down at the gear stick thats probably broken giving the symptoms. It costs about a tenner and is a DIY job if you know how to use a screw driver.

DeanM

I'm an engineer so a screwdriver shouldn't be too big a challenge! BUT, I already dropped it over to the garage!

Would that little spring have such a big effect on the gears? I googled it and from what others have reported, it does sound like a possibility alright. Hopefully it is something small like that!!! Cheers.

Hal1

The guys above are suggesting this spring is broken:


I think it might be this too:


It's easy enough to check it yourself by popping up the gear stick gator.

DeanM

Yeah i could have checked that myself alright. I had already dropped it into the garage 45min before that was posted though! I had seen pics of the spring when i googled it after Plug suggested it could be the problem but it's interesting to see it with the rest of the assembly beneath gator! Cheers for the pics!

DeanM

Ok well that was quick! Got a phone call after that last post and said that it was ready to go. I spoke to the main guy and he said he didnt look at it but one of his guys did and said it was something to do with the linkage. Although he didn't know the exact details so I wouldnt rule out the return spring either! I saw from the window in work that it had been moved after an hour so i assume it had been sorted within the first hour. the spring would be a quicker fix. I don't know if the linkage would be that quick a fix?

But it doesn't really matter, he didn't charge me anything for it anyway! So that's a relief! Thank's for all the suggestions guys! I was expecting a gear box replacement or something like that costing >€500!! After reading the above suggestions and googling them i had a lot better idea of what to expect!

Much appreciated!
Regards,

kirving

Sound Mechanic! Good to know I was on the right track anyway!

DeanM

Yep, good call man! Cheers!