Ford Motor Co. just announced that it is extending the warranty on some Focus and Fiesta cars built for the 2014 to 2016 model years. This comes a month after the Detroit Free Press published a report claiming Ford willingly sold its cars knowing there are defects on the transmission.
The company is adding two years and 40,000 miles on the warranty and also committed to offer a software upgrade for customers who are still experiencing problems with their cars’ gearboxes.
The extension brings Ford’s clutch warranty to a total of seven years or 100,000 miles in the United States and Canada for the 2014-2016 Focus and 2014-2015 Fiesta. Warranty for the transmission control module, meanwhile, remains at 10 years or 150,000 miles.
Additionally, Ford stated it will reimburse car owners of the affected models who have already paid for clutch repair costs out of their own pockets.
“While these vehicles always were and remain safe to drive, we regret the inconvenience our customers have experienced,” Ford’s Vice President for Powertrain Engineering Dave Filipe said in a statement.
According to Filipe, the warranty extension will cover approximately 560,000 customers. Roughly 165,000 or 16 percent of the base number are reportedly still in need of a software update for their vehicles. The software update will generate a prompt that will notify drivers if the transmission control module is malfunctioning.
Ford also said that, if necessary, it will repair the module up to 6 months after the original 10-year or 150,000-mile warranty has expired.
Last month, the automaker also released a memo to its U.S. dealers to repair problematic dual-clutch transmissions on its Focus and Fiesta models at no cost to owners.
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