CarComplaints.com Notes: The 2016 Ford Focus & its "Powershift" transmission has a defect trend where the car shudders when accelerating, especially when starting uphill.
Most owners have reported their Ford Focus remains driveable while the vehicle is still at low mileage, but the shuddering is annoying & unpleasant & may reduce the resale value of the vehicle.
However, owners of higher-mileage vehicles from earlier 3rd generation Focus model years report transmission failure & a host of other major & expensive transmission-related problems. Potential buyers beware.
10.0
really awful
Crashes / Fires:
3 / 0
Injuries / Deaths:
1 / 0
Average Mileage:
29,048 miles
About These NHTSA Complaints:
This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
Car was driving fine in motion on a city street. All of a sudden it wouldn't accelerate properly. Accelerator was push to the floor, RPM's went up to 6,000, car was jerky. At 6,000 RPM the car wouldn't go faster than 40 miles per hour. Speed limit was 50. There was no warning and no dash indicator lights came on. This has happened 2 times on this vehicle, once in October 2016 and once on April 1, 2017. After the first incident, I had the car towed to a dealer. They stated it was a computer problem and reprogramed my car. In between the two incidents, I received a letter from Ford Motor Company dated February 2017. They acknowledged that the car "may exhibit symptoms of intermittent loss of transmission engagement while driving, no-start, or lack of power, usually accompanied by an illuminated service engine soon on the instrument cluster." The letter authorizes replacement of the transmission control module, but it is the opinion of the dealer and Ford Motor Co. That they have to see the problem in action for them to replace it. I believe this is a serious and dangerous problem and has a high probability of causing an accident. Car is currently at the dealer. I am not confident that they will fix the problem.
While driving on highway 95 approximately 65 miles per hour southbound I heard a loud explosion, I did not feel any impact on the automobile but began to hear rattling on the top of the roof. When I pulled over, I saw that sunroof had shattered and exploded. The sunroof cover on the inside of the vehicle was closed and had not been opened. No object hit the sunroof, it just exploded. I have pictures. No other damage to the vehicle anywhere.
- Wilmington, DE, USA
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- Santa Ana, CA, USA