Approximately three months ago, Ford agreed to pay millions to owners of Focus and Fiesta vehicles equipped with the PowerShift automatic transmission. The automaker will have to purchase back defective cars for as much as $22,000 a piece, which could end up costing “potentially $500 million,” according to a lawyer. Now, Ford is in trouble with another transmission and this time it’s not even an automatic.
A new class-action lawsuit from 2011-2020 Mustang owners, brought to our attention by The Drive, will seek legal action against the company for the sports car’s six-speed manual gearbox with codes MT82 and MT82-D4. According to the lawsuit, the two transmissions slip, jerk, engage harshly, clash gears, suffer premature wear, and eventually fail.
The plaintiffs of Gregoria vs. Ford Motor Company claim the issues persist after the transmissions are being repaired, according to The Drive, citing “a poor design that causes shift forks, shift shafts, synchronizers, and clutch assemblies to fail.” The NHTSA even investigated the problem back in 2011 after receiving 364 complaints but found no safety risks.
Ford acknowledged the issues and instructed dealerships to drain and refill the transmissions and replace a number of parts such as the shift forks, synchronizer hubs and sleeves, clutch pedal position switches, and the gearshift lever. However, the company’s internal investigation discovered that just three percent of all transmissions suffer the said problems.
According to the new lawsuit, Ford’s decision to switch to Chinese-made Getrag transmissions to save money caused the problems. In return, the automaker said the issues come from simple wear and tear.
Credit: Motor1 news
