Unsafe vehicle – ford focus

[CHRIS 93]

3 years ago my mother bought a new ford focus. WE MUST HAVE CALLED 2 DOZEN TIMES IN THE FIRST YEAR ASKING WHY THE CAR WAS SHUTTERING AND WE WERE TOLD “ that is normal for this car”. Within the last year my mother has taken her automatic car to Ford at Kirrawee 4 times for the cars shuttering problem and once the car has been towed in!!! There is an intermittent safety problem with this Focus. Upon acceleration and coming to a stop the whole car shakes as if it can’t change gears! The problems so far include: major clutch replacement, changing the transmission control module, “reset factory computers” ←as if that would overcome the problem; and it continually goes into fail safe mode (the service centre at Kirrawee said this is called fail safe mode- when the car knows there is something wrong with it) Upon acceleration, it revs to 5000 rpm and won’t accelerate –this is fail safe mode!!!! This situation becomes a safety issue if a vehicle behind my mother driving hits her vehicle from behind.

It has been at the service department for 11 days now and I am still to hear from them about the issue. The gentleman at Ford Australia, Santos said this is a serious matter and now I am dealing with Steven who reassured me our situation would be attended to by Ford. FORD AUSTRALIA SAID THEY WOULD HELP MY MOTHER. She has a fear that her Focus will fail again as it has done on several occasions but the worst being in the middle of a busy intersection. I was told that my case was a serious matter and that they are going to try their best to help my mother! The Focus has also stopped on a motorway where she became extremely frightened with the trailers and trucks that were overtaking her. The shuttering and drive of the focus has made her extremely frightened to drive.


Ford said they will put her in another vehicle that does not have the same transmission. The offer was to pay $17,000 + the car she has + $10,000 existing debt on current Focus. My mother is a single mum and cannot afford this. I am a full time university student and the priority here is that my mother is in a safe car. Ford are negligent because they have been unable to fix the shuttering on this vehicle FOR 3 YEARS in which my mother has been suffering from.

Ford have a responsibility to provide my mother with a safe drive in the Focus.

I will continue to fight for my Mother’s safety through Fair Trading and Legally.


Is anybody else having problems or an unsafe drive with their Focus?

[Big_Daz]

Hi Chris,

I agree this is not a great situation for your mother to be in, but with Fords offer, it looks like they where going to take the car and pay the debt out and she would have $17k If this is the case, why would you not take that offer and have your mother purchase another car, from another company if she would feel safer??

[theBlake]

Contact John Cadogan at autoexpert.com.au
He has written some articles on this known issue with the focus. (Read them first)

[Top_Ghia]

Sell the car and buy something else.

[xxx000]

what is 'shuttering' ?

or do you mean shuddering?

[furiousgibbon]

just google 'ford powershift problems'. These must be one of the worst gearboxes ever made. The only thing that's saved Ford from a VW-like publicity nightmare is that they didn't sell many (in comparison to the 7 speed DSG).

I noticed the other day that Ford has gone back to conventional automatics, which kinda says it all. No end of problems and they don't seem to have the ability to fix them properly. Do what you can to get rid of it, even if it means cutting a deal with them subsidise the cost of a replacement car.