2011 Mustang GT Grinding Gears

[webby]

On one Mustang owners forum, reports of the problems, possible solutions and complaints to Ford have grown to 2,700 postings, affecting owners of both the V6 and high-powered V8 versions. Fifteen owners have lodged safety complaints with U.S. regulators, saying balky shifts and grinding gears pose a safety hazard in driving. While Ford has offered several potential solutions to owners and reached out to those who complain, many say the problems go away after a repair, then return.

The most common complaint is hard shifts between first, second and third gears, with grinding in other gears. One Mustang owner put his transmission on video — saying the problems had persisted even after six trips to dealerships, two new transmissions, three new clutches and 42 days of the car in the shop:

I'm not exaggerating when I tell you I thought I was gonna get killed tonight. Being on the highway and losing the ability to shift with 3 lanes bearing down on me was enough to make me realize this: A lemon is one thing... An anomaly. This is not an anomaly.​

Another owner told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that the transmission wouldn't shift in traffic:

My car's shift lever became stuck and wouldn't go into gear and I had to force it back to the neutral position while coming to a stop light.. The manual transmission in my 2011 Ford Mustang GT has been whining and grinding gears since the clutch was replaced due to a design flaw (only to get the exact same clutch assembly), and will be going back to the dealer March 29th to hopefully get the trans replaced (w/ the exact same trans that has all these known issues). I imagine this would happen again between now and when the car is taken to the dealer, this is my only and first brand new car, I shouldnt be having these dangerous problems, let along taking my brand new car to a dealership to keep getting repaired over and over again because the failing parts are just being replaced w/ the same parts only to fail over and over again.​

Since the first complaints surfaced last year, Ford has attempted to soothe angry owners and quietly offered several possible fixes, from replacing bolts in the flywheel to new clutches to even swapping out the transmission fluid. While some of those repairs have satisfied customers, several report that the problems returned — especially the balky 1st-2nd shift.​

 

[KennyGS]

Sounds uber-familiar.

 

[webby]

that's bad news is what it is..... I'd say he has a nice metal buffet in his transmission after just this video

 

[dentrecords]

Metal buffets are delicious.

 

[webby]

Metal buffets are delicious.

 

[dentrecords]

 

[webby]

from jalopnik

Two weeks ago, we wrote about hundreds of 2011 Ford Mustang owners reporting problems with the six-speed manual transmissions in their vehicles. We're now hearing more complaints — almost daily — but we have yet to hear from Ford. Color us puzzled.

UPDATE: Silence broken.
Scores of owners say they have problems ranging from hard shifts to outright failures in the MT82 transmissions built in China by a Ford-Getrag joint venture. Ford has issued one technical service bulletin to dealers telling them to swap transmission fluid, and suggested a problem with bolts in the clutch plate as another possible solution. Yet the complaints keep coming, and whatever it's told dealers, Ford has said nothing to customers or to Jalopnik. Here's our best guesses as to why:

Ford doesn't want to talk to us

Automakers get mad at reporters. One might think giant corporations would have thicker skins, but the reverse is true; they employ many high-energy people who fuss over every perceived slight and occasionally decide someone is "dead to us."

But that doesn't make much sense. We've had no bad interactions with Ford on this story, and no one from there has extended an invitation to the woodshed in recent weeks. Even if we were on the naughty list, there's typically no better way to guarantee a call back from an automaker's PR department than to inquire about a quality issue.
Ford wants to downplay the problem

The "stop scratching it" school of professional damage control has been discredited for several years, although a few companies still rely on it. It doesn't seem to be the case here, especially since one of Ford's own Internet customer service advisors has been active on Mustang message boards trying to address complaints, and has received some criticism for lack of progress:

I was not assigned this thread or this forum to sugarcoat this specific issue...I know that I don't have as much info to share as you'd like, or the solution to your issues as quickly as you'd like, but the right people at Ford are aware and have read this thread.

Ford's push into social media as a way to sell more cars cuts both ways; you can't friend your customers on Facebook or follow their Twitter feeds, and then pretend not to hear their complaints.

Ford doesn't have an answer yet
Last week, one 2011 Mustang owner stopped by the dealership while they had his MT82 transmission cracked open, and took a picture of second gear. Bits of the gear had shorn off and were collected with a magnet from the fluid pan. The owner said the car had never received rough treatment:

The synchronizers themselves show some wear but are not really that badly torn up. The blocker rings (you can see one in the picture (the brass part)) are in relatively good condition so the gears and synchro's should be speed matching fine. This leads me to believe that the problem is a combination strong Synchro's and soft metal on the gears. So in other words, I think they are breaking from torque loads that soft metal in the gears can't handle...

Other shade-tree diagnosis has suggested the linkages were misaligned, but there's really not much even an owner with an engineering degree could do to fix the problem on their own. Ford itself may be stumped for an answer — one downside of relying on a global supply chain where engineering, manufacturing and final assembly happen on different continents.

Tucked into Ford's earnings report Monday of $2.6 billion for the first quarter of 2011 was a downgrade of its quality targets for the year from "improved" to "mixed," saying "the company is addressing some near-term issues." It didn't specify what those were, but recent problems include the recall of 1.2 million trucks for air bag issues, issues with Ford Fiesta automatic gearboxes, complaints about MyFord Touch and Ford Focii sitting in lots outside the Michigan assembly plant.

Add to that replacing several thousand broken transmissions and it would cost Ford not just money but reputation. For a company that's profited so much from high quality, it's a tough shift.

UPDATE:Ford has given us the following statement. When we hear more, we'll pass it along:
"We remain absolutely committed to the highest quality in all of our vehicles and are looking into this matter. We remain committed to continuous improvement."

 

[KennyGS]

I work in the U.S. manufacturing industry, and have been for 30+ years. As everyone knows, the push over the last 10 years, and even harder in the last 5, is to send as much U.S. labor-content overseas as possible. I've been living this first-hand, as an engineer.

At the same time, these corporate business geniuses have also decided that maintaining the same quality control departments is unnecessary overhead - "afterall, isn't this what we're paying our Chinese suppliers to do?"

Ten years ago, a business associate, whose job was to set up and manage overseas suppliers, told me that as long as "they" know you'll be on their doorstep in an instant, the quality will be good. However, left to their own, they will also cut corners wherever they can.

I've seen this first hand over and over. Anytime something like this happens, it's because nobody was keeping tabs on our "wonderful Chinese suppliers."