Quote Originally Posted by niky View Post
2. You won't need to change them. The fully automated system means that the clutches will last a whole lot longer than a regular clutch.

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I just saw this thread about Powershift Gearbox now. I beg to disagree that you dont need to change the clutch on the Ford Dual Clutch Transmission. I've attended a seminar conducted by Getrag Ford transmissions at the Dunton Technical Centre in Es*** sometime last year and the Head Engineer of the project talked about the life of these clutches. Yes they intended it to be fit for service life i.e 100,000 miles or 10 years but I think they must have overlooked something on their design verification process and maybe encountered some problems in the field. They are now coming up with what they call as a ' clutch kit' which is basically the clutch assembly of the Dual Clutch Transmission system which will be available as a service part available from Ford in case you will need to replace your clutch pack.

Nothing against the Focus here or Ford in general but I think that the Dual Clutch transmission design is still in its early development stages. I have to say they are brilliant gearboxes, slick gearchanges and gives excellent fuel economy but they dont like driving on heavy traffic which coincidentally is what we have in Manila everyday.

You see, these Dual Clutch gearboxes are basically manual transmissions with automated clutch hence the Head Engineer of Getrag Ford Transmissions rather call it an 'Automatic Manual Transmission'. When you start crawling which is when the transmission engages first gear and fully engages the clutch, the speed is sometimes a bit to fast for the traffic and what you do is step on the brakes to slow it down. This is the bit that the DCT gearbox doesnt like because you allow the clutch to slip and at the same time you ask for it to transmit torque..doing this long enough will leave you with a worn out clutch pretty soon.

I have first hand experience of this as our family owns 2 Ford Focus TDCi Sport Powershift. One of them had a major issue in the transmission last year as it missed its shifting and even got stuck in one gear. You have to turn off the engine and restart it to make it shift again. Ford replaced the entire transmission under warranty. Now the other car had transmission is showing 'transmission malfunction' and the car is having 'clutch drag' when you drive it in traffic. It is scheduled to be inspected by the Ford Dealer next week. However, the car that had a gearbox change last year, had another 'transmission malfunction' and refused to select any gear and the car didnt moved. We had to restart the engine and then it worked again but the error message is still there. Now its got 'Clutch drag' as well.

Its fair to say that it maybe a one off when the tranny failed on the other car but now both cars are having problems. These cars were purchased last Feb 2009. So I guess I can say that there is something wrong with the gearbox design? Also, I have a colleague based in the UK who has a 2010 VW Golf with DSG Gearbox who also had a gearbox change under warranty. So it isnt just a Ford Issue after all. It seems like Dual Clutch Transmission or Dual Sequential Gearbox Technology isnt really perfected yet.