2012 6F35 Transmission Problems (New Video)

[LagunaFusion]

If you aren't satisfied with the transmission's performance, you NEED to bring the car back in for further testing. Failure of the PCM update to correct the problem may indicate failure of the valve body. You should also file a complaint (very easy to do) with NHTSA if you feel it poses a safety concern.

 

I know you are right, I'm just tired of the many trips to the dealer and the time spent on that

[Jo7hs2]

 

 

I know you are right, I'm just tired of the many trips to the dealer and the time spent on that

 

Trust me, I get it...my car has been out of service 27 days over the last two months...and is only eight months old. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

[Jo7hs2]

An update on my 2010...my issue was with a harsh 2>3 shift when warm, with no flares or other apparent signs of slippage. Since my dealer's hands were tied (FoMoCo wouldn't let them invesitgate further), I tried giving the Customer Care hotline a try. Here is a synopsis of the latest I have been told by my rep:

• The flares and other signs of slippage are not normal, and your dealer should investigate them
  
• The hard 2>3 shift when warm is normal and Ford is well aware of the fact that Fusion owners don't like it
  

Regarding the second point, Ford is working on a reprogram, but it's a matter of balancing a smooth shift and fuel economy. My rep did not have an estimate of when this might come out, nor could he confirm/deny the July timeline others have mentioned.

 

The engine characteristics combined with that gear change ratio is what causes the 2>3 shift to be noticeably harder than the rest. One of the engineers that the rep has been discussing this with also has a Fusion with the same characteristics as well, so he knows exactly what I was referring to. Bottom line, is it has to do with how to meet upcoming CAFE standards. Tweaking with the transmission was one of the first things they went after. Aside from the known GM connection to this transmission design (you'll find similar shifting complaints with the Malibu), supposedly, Mercedes had a hand in it as well. The one other point he kept reiterating is that this harder shift point is not damaging the transmission; that it was designed for this type of shifting strategy.

 

Basically, this shifting characteristic will be present (or at least has a high probability of being present) in all vehicles with the 6F35 transmission, 2010 - present.

 

What about 1->2? Did they mention that? Most Fusion and Escape drivers I talk to complain about that shift more than 2->3. Since it uses a sprag clutch and is not a clutch to clutch shift, I don't expect buttery smooth performance, but I'm wondering if it is also a bit aggressive on purpose.

Edited April 28, 2012 by Jo7hs2

[dabige]

What about 1->2? Did they mention that? Most Fusion and Escape drivers I talk to complain about that shift more than 2->3. Since it uses a sprag clutch and is not a clutch to clutch shift, I don't expect buttery smooth performance, but I'm wondering if it is also a bit aggressive on purpose.

 

No, the 1>2 was not discussed/mentioned, as any shifting issues there have been far more infrequent than my 2>3 shift. But I would not be surprised if any of the shifts are set to be more aggressive under certain shifting circumstances.

[Jo7hs2]

Absolutely...for fuel economy reasons they'd want a minimum time spent in and shifting out of 1st or 2nd, so those are the two shifts I'd expect they'd be willing to harsh up.

[Don H]

I took my 2012 Fusion into the ealer today with the transmission flaring problem which started happening at 10,000 miles. They had a Service Bullentin #22195 which stated if the latest foftware version was installed and fluid levels were correct this was considered Normal operation for the transmission to slip for the first 6 shifts. I called Ford Customer Service and was told the same. So I paid $28,000 for a new Fusion with such normal operations that would be a bad transmission needing fixing with any other brand. Doesn't sound reasonable to me but Ford will do nothing else at this point in time.

[Jo7hs2]

Interesting. So now Ford considers that normal. I'd love to get my hands on that bulletin.

Edited May 1, 2012 by Jo7hs2

[IcyFusion]

Interesting. So now Ford considers that normal. I'd love to get my hands on that bulletin.

 

That, and now they mainly keep referring to "adaptive shift strategy"...but I know I told you about that in the past. I promptly told them that no, that is not what is causing the problem.

[klink1983]

Check this out!

 

[Jo7hs2]

Klink,

 

What exactly am I looking at? Is that at idle? During a load test?

[FusionDiffusion]

They're brake torquing the engine. The car is in drive, and you put your left foot on the brake and your right foot on the gas. Due to flaring and slamming into gear, the motor mounts have been damaged on this car, so the engine can just flop around like a fish out of water when it reaches a resonance point at a certain rpm.

 

P.S. It's my personal opinion that the dealer techs that made this video should be fired for horsing around with the customer's car for their own entertainment. Letting the engine slam around like that is very hard on all the piping and connections going to it, so seeing it do that once is enough. I wouldn't be surprised if they cracked an A/C line doing that.

[steener]

Just to chime in on this:

 

Purchased a 2011 SEL V6 AWD in mid-May 2012, with just over 10,000 km/6,000 miles on the clock. Primarily my spouse's car, so I did not drive it before purchase. A couple of days after getting the car home, I did drive the vehicle, and immediately noticed the 'flare' when shifting from 2nd to 3rd. Did a little online research, and discovered this car is far from unique.

 

Took to dealer, and here is what it says on the work order, quote: "verified trans shift flares. Fluid condition (black). No codes. Remove transmission, mount to bench. Dismantle trans. Found seal on o/d piston torn, found burnt o/d and direct clutches. Overhaul trans replacing required parts. Clean and check t/convertor. Flush cooler. Road test - all ok now."

 

Sadly, after being without the car for a full week and the technician's "all ok now," within two days, the car is doing the 2-3 flare again, is jerky going into 1st gear from reverse, and 1-2-3 shifts are far harsher than 4-5-6.

 

Just for fun, I went to the dealer yesterday, where they kindly allowed me to road test three identical 2011 Fusions - all SEL/V6/AWD - every one of them had the 2-3 flare when cold.

 

It's a real shame, because we are very fond of the car otherwise. Anyway, it'll be back to dealer next week.

 

Don't let anyone tell you this is not a common problem.

[ccd228]

I have a 2012 fusion sport at 1600 miles the transmission stalled. I had driven about 20 minutes and it was fine. I stopped at a stop sign went to pull out and nothing. Hit gas more and the rpm's shot up and it zoomed off. It did that a few times after that. Next day it drove fine but the engine light came on. I dropped off at dealer and they got codes of P2196 and P2198.Codes were reset and basically car given back to me unfixed and they didn't really know what to do. Said they could not replicate it and that Ford told them to give back to customer. So very night I get car back same thing. This is unsafe and I'm going to get hit. So next day I take car out and while driving it shakes hard about 3-4 times then stops but continues to stall out while pulling out. I go to put gas in in later and it won't crank.I only put $20 worth so it was not over filled. When it did crank on 2nd time the rpm's shot up. I will be taking back to dealer next week.But so far no other engine/wrench lights have came on.

[con_fusion]

I have a 2012 fusion sport at 1600 miles the transmission stalled. I had driven about 20 minutes and it was fine. I stopped at a stop sign went to pull out and nothing. Hit gas more and the rpm's shot up and it zoomed off. It did that a few times after that. Next day it drove fine but the engine light came on. I dropped off at dealer and they got codes of P2196 and P2198.Codes were reset and basically car given back to me unfixed and they didn't really know what to do. Said they could not replicate it and that Ford told them to give back to customer. So very night I get car back same thing. This is unsafe and I'm going to get hit. So next day I take car out and while driving it shakes hard about 3-4 times then stops but continues to stall out while pulling out. I go to put gas in in later and it won't crank.I only put $20 worth so it was not over filled. When it did crank on 2nd time the rpm's shot up. I will be taking back to dealer next week.But so far no other engine/wrench lights have came on.

 

Defintely sounds like you have a problem but since you have the Sport model you have the Aisin transmission and not the 6F35 that is described in most of these posts.

 

Good luck with your issue, hopefully they can pinpoint it.

[steener]

Just to chime in on this:

 

Purchased a 2011 SEL V6 AWD in mid-May 2012, with just over 10,000 km/6,000 miles on the clock. Primarily my spouse's car, so I did not drive it before purchase. A couple of days after getting the car home, I did drive the vehicle, and immediately noticed the 'flare' when shifting from 2nd to 3rd. Did a little online research, and discovered this car is far from unique.

 

Took to dealer, and here is what it says on the work order, quote: "verified trans shift flares. Fluid condition (black). No codes. Remove transmission, mount to bench. Dismantle trans. Found seal on o/d piston torn, found burnt o/d and direct clutches. Overhaul trans replacing required parts. Clean and check t/convertor. Flush cooler. Road test - all ok now."

 

Sadly, after being without the car for a full week and the technician's "all ok now," within two days, the car is doing the 2-3 flare again, is jerky going into 1st gear from reverse, and 1-2-3 shifts are far harsher than 4-5-6.

 

Just for fun, I went to the dealer yesterday, where they kindly allowed me to road test three identical 2011 Fusions - all SEL/V6/AWD - every one of them had the 2-3 flare when cold.

 

It's a real shame, because we are very fond of the car otherwise. Anyway, it'll be back to dealer next week.

 

Don't let anyone tell you this is not a common problem.

 

Have since traded emails with the service manager at my dealership, and he has given me the details of what the repair done earlier involved, because I wasn't sure what the part numbers were telling me. My main question was whether the valve body had been replaced, and indeed it had been::

 

1 FOBL8Z-7A100-A CONTROL ASY - N 57.83 1 80.96 80.96 W | (this is the valve body)

| FOBL8Z-7A100-A CORE PRICE N 225.00 1 225.00 225.00 W |

| 2 FOMTK-132906 KIT - GASKET N 94.66 1 132.52 132.52 W |

| 3 FO9L8Z-7B164-C DRIVE PLATE - N 2.65 3 3.71 11.13 W |

| 4 FO9L8Z-7B442-D DRIVEN PLATE N 2.68 3 3.75 11.25 W |

| 5 FO9L8Z-7B164-D PLATE ASY - D N 2.76 5 3.86 19.30 W |

| 6 FO9L8Z-7B442-E DRIVEN PLATE N 1.37 5 1.92 9.60 W |

| 7 XF6E5Z-3B477-AA NUT N 9.62 2 13.47 26.94 W |

| 8 XF-W302123-S300 NUT N 3.48 2 4.87 9.74 W |

| 9 XF-W711960-S439 BOLT N 1.04 4 1.46 5.84 W |

| 10 FO-N800750-S437 NUT - HEX. N 1.28 4 1.79 7.16 W |

| 11 FOTA-29 SEALANT - SIL N 6.41 1 8.97 8.97 W |

| 12 FO-72107-S PIN 1/8X2 N 0.17 2 0.17 0.34 W |

 

In his email, the service manager said, "On your car the improper programming had already caused some damage to the clutches/plates so we replaced those clutches and plates, the valve body and all the gaskets and check balls etc. as well as the latest program. We have bulletins from Ford on this exact concern and that is what we followed to fix it."

 

The service manager also said, "Since all this discussion I have started to pay attention to my 2012 Fusion. I also feel some weird shifts at times which I had not noticed before. My prior Fusion probably did this also (it was a 2011) but I never really paid attention."

 

So, their transmission expert has been on vacation, but returns this week, and the service manager says he will be happy to go for a ride with me to see how it is behaving since the fix. I have to say, the dealership has been really good about this to date. When the car was in for the transmission rebuild, they provided me with a rental vehicle for a week at no charge, which I thought was exceptional, and they have been taking the situation very seriously -- no hint of the "Don't worry about it, they all do this," or "It's all in your imagination."

 

As an aside, the rental car (which was from a retail rental store, and not a dealer-owned vehicle) was a 2012 SEL with the four cylinder engine. It's transmission was incredibly scary - the shift from 2-3 often sounded and felt like someone was whacking it into gear with a sledgehammer. I returned it and they gave me a Fiesta for the rest of the week.

Edited July 8, 2012 by steener

[bhohn0]

I am now closing in on 7000 miles on my SEL 2.5. I am still not impressed with the 1-2 shift, I am skeptical the reprogram addresses that. Just the shift flares I'm betting. I checked my trans fluid yesterday, and it is a brownish red, instead of the nice bright red it was when new(or even at 3000 miles when the reprogram was done). Called the dealer, they of course are saying color change is normal. While I agree that is it normal, I do not believe by 7000 miles it's normal. They of course then offered for me to bring it in so they could look at it. Not sure what to do. I can't understand why when I manually shift the trans it is fine, but if it is in D then the crappy 1-2 shift. Sometimes is feels as tho almost a second goes by before the 1-2 shift happens. I didn't tell the Service Manager when I'd be by, just thanked him for offering and said I would try to make time to get in.

[Jo7hs2]

Smell the fluid. If it smells burnt, the darkening probably isn't normal. If it doesn't, it may be normal to be that dark, or it may not. Apparently, the aluminum casing does cause the fluid to darken faster than in older transmissions...at least according to my dealership. When mine was slipping, it was very clear from the smell something was very wrong, so I'd be sure to check that even before I brought it in.

[steener]

So, here it is a little more than a year and about 20,000 kilometres since the 2011's transmission was rebuilt by the dealer.

 

It has continued ever since to show the flare between 2nd and 3rd on the first few shifts after the car has been sitting for more than 24 hours. Last week, I decided to take it in to see what the dealer would say about it.

 

They kept it for a couple of days, and sure enough, on the test drive after letting it sit for 36 hours, it did the flare on the 2-3 shift. Verdict: Since my rebuild last summer, Ford has apparently issued a new TSB on this. Have not seen it myself, but according to the service dept., it says, in essence, "It's normal. They all do this."

 

Last year, they did a complete rebuild in an attempt to correct the "problem." Ford has obviously found a better fix: just declare that it is not a problem.

 

We'll see how it goes. I have good long warranty.

[Jo7hs2]

Steener, I'm in the same boat. 20k miles past rebuild with continued flare 2-3 and harsh 1-2. When the transmission is hot after extended driving, the 1-2 is downright awful. Like getting hit in the rear by a small car at low speeds. Occasionally, a 5-4 or 6-5 gets completely waffled for a few seconds, but it is mostly isolated to upshifts. The car keeps passing pressure tests and everything, and it hasn't turned the transmission fluid black again, so I'm inclined to accept it as it now is, until the end of my 75k/5yr extended care warranty. It does seem Ford has decided some noticeable flare is normal on 2-3 at times, based on my interactions with CS and techs. And the unit has never failed to shift, so I'm not really all that worried.

[PublicHair]

I too have unpleasant transmission issues.

 

I did notice a huge change is smoothness with the transmission after I switched to E85. It was a night and day difference. Smooth as could be in all gears. I then filled up with mid grade. Issues were instantly back after the 2nd key start.

 

The manual says fill the tank with at least half a tank of either fuel when switching. E85 to gasoline or visa versa. Driver for at least 5 miles for the onboard computer to change tune settings. Which is what I did.

 

I have forwarded this info to ford. It's leading me to think that the tuning of the motor and ignition (internal combustion) play a role in with the transmission issues.

 

I will say, around town the mileage sucks with e85. So its hard to pick which one i should go with. But I'm thinking a few more tanks of e85 and see how my mileage averages.

[Jo7hs2]

Sadly, the I-4 in the 2010-2012MY Fusion is not flex-fuel, so I can't try E85...otherwise I'd chime in and see if makes any difference in my car.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Jo7hs2

[PublicHair]

Update. Filled the car up with premium grade fuel (91 octane). Significant difference in transmission performance.

 

Lets make a scale of (0) to (10). Ten being smooth shifting. Zero being harsh shifts and hefty flaring.

 

My car ranked a 3 when I purchased it may 24th this year.

 

E85 ranked a 9

87 octane ranked a 3

91 octane ranked a 7

 

E85 runs at 110 octane I believe, FYI.

 

I'm going to Colorado later this month for two weeks. Due to altitude they run 93 octane out where I come from (Denver) so ill of course try that and see how it performs compared to 91 here in Cali.

Edited August 31, 2013 by PublicHair

[FusionDiffusion]

The AKI of E85 is only about 95 octane (if you want to compare to other gasoline grades).

 

At high altitude you don't need as much octane, so in Denver they actually sell 85 octane gas. So 89 octane in Denver would be the equivalent of 91 octane in CA. It could also be related to the reformulated gasoline they use in CA as well.

[PublicHair]

Oh yeah, you're right. I forgot it's reversed. I was in TX for two years for work and only drove back to visit in between work. Now I'm working and have a home in CA. Not much time spent these days in colorado.

 

Anywho, I will see how the car performs up there with the high grade octane (no matter where I'm located). I did find an E85 stations in Nevada or Utah so I'll also do a fill up and see what kind of MPG I get during that tank. Interesting to see.

 

On my Seattle trip from Sacramento I tried E85 in the 2010 Ram 1500 4.7 and it only took a 2mpg hit highway (about 19mpg vs 21 mpg).

[Carpenter]

My 2007 fusion automatichas a hard shift from 3rd gear to 4th gear, only after it warms up. Would a new valve body assembly correct the problem.

I have the FNR5 transmission and its not giving me a code, even after running it with a scan tool. Can someone please help me with a fix. I have replaced

selonoids, transmission fluid heat sensor, and fluid. If I drive below 40mph the shift is nice a smooth. What's the possible problem?