Transmission judder
The automatic transmission on my 2013 Ford B-MAX is starting to play up. This is essentially a judder in the low gears, which is worse when on a tight lock and trying to accelerate. I can sometimes hear what I assume is the clutch pack rattling.
As I understand it, this is a common problem and that it can be quite expensive to have the clutch pack changed. A mechanic told me that the oil seals have been upgraded and that this might be the issue. I have also been told that there could be a software upgrade and that Ford have extended the warranty for the transmission to five years. Is any of this correct? My car has only done 25,000 miles. M Hopkins The gearbox in your B-MAX is the dual-clutch unit and, when it works, it is a very good gearbox. Unfortunately, it does appear to suffer from a few problems. Failure of the clutch pack due to a degraded oil seal is one of them. A software upgrade was introduced to earlier models in 2012, but your 2013 vehicle would have the updated version already.
Although your problem may be the gearbox, as the fault is worse when turning on a tight lock, it would be worth getting the driveshaft joints checked to ensure that the judder and noise are not due to a problem with a worn constant velocity joint. This is not likely, but it is worth double-checking.
Because Ford had problems with the Powershift gearbox, they extended the warranty on the unit to five years in the UK; in the US and Australia, this is seven years. There have been rumours that Ford won’t honour the warranty on a car which has been serviced outside the Ford dealer network, but from the information I have Ford will authorise gearbox warranty work on vehicles which have been serviced by reputable workshops outside the three years on a case-by-case basis.
Ford do say that, in the first instance, your local Ford dealer should be the first contact point. But if you are not satisfied with the response, you can contact Ford Customer Service on 020 3564 4444 or by post at Ford Customer Relationship Centre, Royal Oak Way South, Daventry, Northamptonshire NN11 8NT.