Owner of 2013 Ford Fiesta with the automatic dual clutch PowerShift transmission. Dealership reprogrammed TCM for $100 but that never fixed it. The car hesitates when starting from complete stop and stutters/jerks at low speeds. This happens most commonly after the car is fully warmed up or after a highway drive with mine. If you aren't prepared this can put you in a dangerous spot, if you pull out in traffic but lose acceleration. Having learned to drive on a stick I am used to how a clutch normally engages vs a torque converter. However this transmission is very temperamental and feels like it is trying to tear itself apart. I have learned to live with it and baby the car, which has gotten me to 175,000 miles so far. The rest of the car is bulletproof and very simple to maintain, I am planning to buy another (with manual trans) or swap the transmission when this thing goes.

It seems the pre-2016ish transmissions are all plagued with this issue and there is no fix except getting used to it.

Ok Ford. My father believes in all AMERICAN so when my Toyota 4 Runner went down at 384k miles, I knew that I could not get another Toyota. Even though the Toyota was awesome. Anyway, my dad is helping our family and respect for my dad is what mattered the most at the time, he helped by putting money down and co-signing. He drove down from Va. to Elizabeth City. We went to Hall Ford here I saw the fiesta and fell in love with the color. Bluish purple. Small, Sporty,great gas mileage,even test drive was nice. Then after about 2 weeks I started noticing that the car had a stutter when accelerating. Took it to dealer and it was the control module needing to be replaced. The girl working there, said The transmission is a standard automatic and it shifts that way. WHAT??

I told her it didn't matter I was due for oil change and to fix it. Not fixed. Still stutters, friends laugh when it happens and say oh guess it's that "automatic standard" transmission. WTF?? Anyway I have had several recalls on it as well. I have just been waiting until I can get some cash together to trade the piece of "lemon" in. The only thing good about this Fiesta is the gas mileage. Paint is fading, cruise control stopped working, and now my power windows seem to be possessed! They go up and down on there own, sometimes they don't work at all.

I purchased a 2013 Ford Fiesta SE from the Alfa-Romeo Fiat Dealership in Austin, TX in November 20, 2015. It looked like a pretty good well taken care of car, and with only 12,503 miles, I said what a bargain. Little did I know, days after my purchase, I started noticing the transmission acting up, like when your at a stop and start to accelerate, the car starts jerking and stalling, and the whole drivers side trembles.

I took it to Maxwell Ford on the Motor Mile in Austin, TX, and after the car spending a few days, they told me that they had replace the TCM, (transmission control module), and that everything else checked out o.k.. When I drove it off the dealership, the first stoplight I came to, then tried to accelerate the car like I normally do, and the problem persisted, even worse it seemed like. I don't know but I have never owned a Ford in all my life, I was am still a Chevy type of guy, and after experiencing this headache, "It's The Last Ford, Piece Of Crap Company, That I'll Ever Buy, Ever"!!

Bought a 2013 Ford Fiesta with 55,000 miles on it. Notice in the first week the trans slipping, chugging, and making noises, mostly in the lower first and second gear when taking off. Took car back to ford they basically said nothing is wrong it normal. Had them at least reprogram it since I was there. Still has same problem. Still slips on take off, chugs on take off, sometimes it is worse than other times. Shift good in the morning,

It's just a really poor design, low quality, cheap transmission that shifts like crap. My guess is that with this amount of shaking, vibrating and slipping these transmissions will not last long. Their is a flaw in the design of this trans and Ford needs to fix it.

OK, this is the second time I've posted about this car. Ford should be absolutely embarrassed that they manufactured the worst car ever made. Seriously. 500 miles into my brand new Fiesta (2013) I had to have the entire transmission replaced. This happened ONLY after numerous phone calls to the factory, threatening legal action, and standing in the middle of the dealership lobby making an absolute scene. Ford never wanted to admit they made a BIG mistake putting in these "new and improved" transmissions. They finally conceded and replaced the transmission. Of course, it took me three months of calling the factory daily, calling every consumer advocate I could, and being on a well-known talk radio show to get any results. The car was in the shop more than I could drive it. Lemon laws? Almost impossible to prove that, trust me, I tried.

After that transmission was finally replaced, I then had to have a new catalytic converter. This is about 1000 miles into it. Next, I had to take it back for a transmission recall, which took them 5 days to fix, and the car still continued to have the same problems......slipping, chugging, shuddering, rattles, cutting out while driving, dying at stoplights. Truly a nightmare and truly the worst car I have ever owned in my 40 years of driving. In two and a half years, I have not driven that car long distance for fear of breaking down in the middle of nowhere. Absolutely ridiculous.

I finally, just this weekend, traded the piece of crap in....got about half of what I paid for it, but I was just glad to have this car taken off my hands. Ford should not just recall these Fiestas, but pull them from the market and compensate EVERYONE WHO EVER BOUGHT ONE OF THESE JOKES OF A VEHICLE.

PLEASE PEOPLE, DO NOT GO THROUGH THE NIGHTMARE I WENT THROUGH. DO NOT BUY A FIESTA, EVER !!!!! I went and got an old Jeep and I can tell you, it runs WAY BETTER than that new Fiesta ever did. What a waste of money, time and 2 1/2 years of my life !!!!

Super annoying, feels like someone new driving a manual. Brought it in to have it fixed, it drove well for a day and a half, then it started again. From what I read here it can't be fixed, so now I don't know what to do.

Update from Jun 1, 2015: I brought it in to a Ford Dealer, they said they replace the clutch to fix it, and do something to the computer as well. They also told me Ford has, due to all the complaints, extended the warranty (on the Transmission only) to 10 years. They were very nice about it, I didn't even have to explain. I just said "my Fiesta is having the usual transmission problems", they said, "we have the part to fix that". It took one day, and they gave me a rental for free as well. It works fine now.

Let me know where the class action law suit is hangin' out on this one! The Ford Fiesta is a lemon and someone needs to take responsibility! Come on man, I get better customer service on my vacuum! I too experienced that shimmy and shake at acceleration and so on and took it in to my (untrustworthy dealership as it turns out) to hear "no its fine nothings really wrong it's just half stick and half automatic".. Only to get a letter from Ford weeks later admitting the cars a lemon SO THEY'LL EXTEND THE WARRANTY!!! WHEW!!!! Rude. But seriously how do I get rid of this crap car?

I have had this grinding, slipping, crunching sound problem with my Fiesta for several months and the problem is not getting any better. When I first took it in at approximately 5,000 miles, the technicians said they would reset the computer and that would take care of the problem. Whatever they did, did not fix the issue. Next, I took it in at around 10K miles. Well, my wife took it in and they told her that it's working as designed and its an "advanced" gearbox designed to sound and feel like a "European manual transmission". Thankfully, my wife and I have both visited and lived in Europe and have never witnessed any car over there behaving like this.

We are now sitting at 22K miles now - the engine sounds like a blender with metal spoons in it! Having received the Customer Satisfaction Program 14M01 - Warranty Extension letter from Ford, decided that maybe now the oh so smart engineers at Ford who have designed this advanced gearbox they call Powershi(f)t 6 have come to terms that it is a piece of crap and have allowed some in-warranty work to be done on it.

Meanwhile, what I still don't get is that Ford is STILL adamant about passing as a FEATURE or NORMAL CHARACTERISTIC what pretty much any customer will call a defect or a bug or a severe annoyance. I just don't get it. What should my ad on Craigslist say? - "2013 Ford Fiesta - gives great mileage. Makes grinding noises at every start - and THAT my dear friends, is a feature that will make you feel like you're driving a European sports car! Will give you Power SHI(f)Ts!

Back to the story, I take it to the dealership in some new found hope that it will be fixed this time. They hold on to it for 4 days and then call me back and say that the slippage is well within the stringent acceptable boundaries put together by the smart engineers at Ford - yes, the same ones that designed the advanced Powershi(f)t 6! The service manager at the dealership tells me that he can't replace the clutch unless the slippage is over 250 RPM. So I ask him - for the vehicles that have more than 250 RPM slippage, has changing the clutch resolved the issue? - he says yes. Next I ask him to show me the report for my vehicle and what amount of slippage it showed? He claims that he does not print the report unless it exceeds 250 RPM. How am I to believe that the slippage is below 250 at this point?? So then I ask him what am I to do if the clutch slippage stays at or below 250 for the lifetime of the vehicle? The 'Extended warranty' that FORD so politely extended to the vehicle is as good as monopoly money (Too harsh for toilet paper - though that would be the right thing for the powershi(f)t 6). I ask the service foreman to print out the TSB from Ford that says in essence that Ford will not pay him if he replaces the clutch if the slippage is under 250. Why would he even bother printing it out if the slippage is above the threshold? It's cost to him now.

Now I decide to escalate the matter. I opened a case with Ford customer service. The first technician "J" tells me that he has heard of no such thing about a 250 RPM. After talking to the dealer (and his supervisor), he calls me back and says that he has passed on the case to a Tier 1 agent; who proceeds to tell me that they have passed the case on over to the regional customer service rep. Aha! I begin to feel like this is going somewhere. I'm being noticed. I'm going to have a vehicle that I finally like driving (too early for the stronger L word right now). First conversation with the regional service rep bursts my hopes like a balloon! She has the tone of an insurance agent trained to say NO! pfffffft.

My next options are quite uncertain at this point but one thing is for sure - I do not want to own a LEMON.