Focus Gear selection problem

Figured it out, stripped it down and found a broken spring. I ordered a replacement at £6.49 dealer only part. If it happens to anyone else.

Its rarely a cheap fix :)

Assuming it wasn't like it when you first had it, and it's suddenly happened:

(Scroll down to link to a PDF file.)

It's a fiver and 15 minutes to fix if that's what's wrong.

Chris

Thanks chris, thats a helpful guide there. My spring it located on the otherside compared to the guide, but very similar process. Although I got away without having to take the console out.

Bent gate. New gearbox

It looks like the spring it the only thing broken, I found the broken bit, remove the remainder of spring and the local ford dealers will have the part in the morning. Hopefully once fitted that should be the end of the problem. Fingers crossed.

Not sure what a bent gate is ?

LOL - very old fashioned common problem with gearboxes. Not sure it happens anymore. The 'gate' is basically a fork which selects the gear. Sounds like you were lucky.

Pretty unlucky really; this was a common problem with early Focuses, but the grade of material was changed around 2001 so the OP's car shouldn't have been affected.

Chris

AHHHHH I'm now with you James. Fortunately for me it was not as serious.

Interesting, I get all the bad luck lol.

I think I'll be seeing you around on the ford forums. You have the 1.8 don't you ? if my memory serves me right.

So far I'm very impressed with it, and has a bit of poke for 1.8 which is nice, initially I was after a 1.6 but the right car came up and had 1.8. I am enjoying driving again tbh after the golf which was a good car, but plagues with so many "common problems" I spent a lot of time fixing it on weekends, but it served me well.

The focus however ozzes more niceness :) than the golf imho a few more bells and whistles and an enjoyable les cumbersome drive than the golf especially on country roads. Also noticed it revs lower so I guess my fuel consumption is going to put a smile on my face. Although coming from a heavy car and small engine the golf was 1.6 it was thirsty.

Ordered a haynes for it which will be handy, and also reading through ford forums to get a bit more knoweledge on them. Nice to know the ins and out.

I had a 1.8 from new for 10 years, then wrote it off. I've replaced it with a 1.6.

I'm retired now, and only do a low annual mileage; the 1.6 is OK for my needs, but if I was covering a lot of miles all over the country, I would consider the 1.8 as a much better bet.

In the 10 years I had the 1.8, I spent less than 100UKP on non-service items, so not too much weekend tinkering! I did the gearchange return spring, the vehicle speed sensor, a split hose on the charcoal canister solenoid, and a tiny water leak that needed the pressure tester to find. That's it! Probably a morning's work if you added them all together.

Chris

this is a gear selector gate, you are talking about a selector fork

No a gate. They used to be inside the box.

That is impressive!

I hope I'm that lucky. Out of interest I was wondering how many miles you could cover on a full tank, I know it will vary depending on driving style, roads etc. (on you 1.8 and 1.6 out of interest really)

thanks

Fuel light would usually come on at 350 miles or so with the 1.8, and the only time it's been on with the 1.6 was at about 380.

Whenever I checked the consumption brim to brim of the 1.8, it returned about 33/34 mpg in everyday use. Best I ever saw was 40 mpg, but that was a long run and trying to economise when the fuel pickets were on.

The 1.6 does a couple of mpg better, but since retirement my usage is too different to be meaningful.

Chris

Not as good as I hoped for with petrol consumption based on official stats which are not always accurate. I could easily get 440 miles in my golf 1.6 (2001) driving reasonably light on the right pedal, which was aparantly odd consdiering the car for some reason I was lucky I guess. Although I guess with a bigger engine it will use more petrol anyway. I do a lt of driving around town, country and onlye 200 miles a fortnight on the motorway. But not shockingly bad.

What was the tank size on the Golf?

Chris

It is a 55L tank, what size tank is the 1.8 ?

I noticed the screen wash tank is quite small aswell, not a problem for me as my wife sometimes drives my car she emptied the tank on one 3 hour journey yesterday!! lol.

In message , ianhopkins writes

They often siphon the wash fluid out of the vent. It sometimes helps to only 3/4 fill the bottle. I think there was a TSB (service bulletin) about the bottle vent many years ago.

You can see the vent and the weird bottle shape here:-