Grating gearbox

There’s an issue with the five-speed manual gearbox in my 2016 Ford Fiesta 1.0 Ecoboost. Occasionally, when I engage reverse, the gears seem to not mesh, which results in grating when the clutch pedal is raised to the biting point.

I know the Fiesta has straight-cut reverse gearwheels with no synchromesh and that sometimes the teeth on the reverse gearwheels can stop ‘end facing end’, so you need to go back to neutral, let up the clutch and try to engage reverse again. Before engaging reverse, I always make sure that the car is fully stationary, the clutch is not dragging, the biting point is correct and the gear linkage feels correctly adjusted. However, I find this Fiesta has a greater tendency to grate in reverse gear than any of my previous cars .

Looking online, a number of forums say the five-speed manual gearbox is prone to this problem and there is no known remedy. Is there any cure, other than always being extremely careful when engaging reverse gear?

Jim Mclaughlin

Even though you say that the gear linkage feels correctly adjusted, you also mention that the gearlever feels as though it has fully engaged reverse even though the gears have not actually meshed. Because of this, I would suggest that the first thing would be to check the adjustment of the cables. This is a simple task and requires no special tools.

If your Fiesta has an undershield, you will need to remove it to access the mechanism. Then remove the plastic cover that protects the cables where they connect to the gearbox mechanism. Confirm the cables are correctly positioned and not kinked or pushed out of place, then select 4th gear and ensure that the lever is fully pushed into position. Pull out the locking tab on the end of the lower selector cable to allow the ball connector to move freely, then manually push the selector from the gearbox up and down and ensure that it stops in the central position, before pushing the locking tab back into place. While the cover is removed from the gear selector cables, I would also check for any signs that the outer cables are not held correctly.

The reverse gear on your Fiesta is a straight-cut gear, so it may require a slower engagement time, but the input shaft is slowed down by a modified 5th gear synchro when selecting reverse and this should help alleviate the normal problems associated with selecting a straight-cut gear.