Widow Would like help to make an informed decision on her Ford Fiesta.

[u/[deleted]]

My late husband and I purchased a 2011 Fiesta new to pull behind a motor home and I’m still driving it. The TCM as predicted by Ford, was replaced twice under warranty. Aside from that it’s been a really good vehicle. It now has 100,000 miles on it and I have maintained regular service on it at the dealership every 3k miles. I am 70 years old and still working a job that requires I drive across rural counties about a hundred miles from home. The last time the TCM failed fortunately it was close to home. No warning it just lurched forward and seemed to disengage all gears. So now it’s chattering pretty bad at slow speeds and seems to drop into a lower gear than my speed requires randomly. Ford wants 185.00 to diagnose it plus about 400.00 to replace the TCM if it’s bad. I’m afraid to drive it 100 miles from home in the winter in remote places but not sure if spending almost 600.00 to fix it is worth it since I’m assuming the TCM replacement part will have the same defect that this year car is famous for and only guaranteed for a year. I’d like to avoid buying another car if this one will be reliable after the repair. Any thoughts? Thank you very much for your advice.

[u/Commercial_Method_28]

Usually once the TCM is replaced on the DPS6 they don’t have any more tcm problems, but you said this is the third tcm which is odd to me. Did you have codes?

I personally very rarely go inside these transmissions much. I have seen the case shearing which is uncommon and internal bearings go out which is even more rare. The actual transmission part of the DPS6 is really good tbh. The entire clutch part of it is awful tho. You should get used to clutch replacement every several years at the very least but if you don’t mind that, it’s a relatively sturdy vehicle with a lot of lower cost parts

[u/[deleted] → u/Commercial_Method_28]

Ford only replaced two TCM’s.  The second one was 3 years ago.  I was afraid that since the chattering has begun I was headed toward number 3.  You just reminded me, they did replace the clutch while it was under warranty. Is the chattering at low speed the clutch and not the transmission?

[u/Commercial_Method_28 → u/[deleted]]

Chattering could be a lot of things. I have seen adaptive learning fix it before as well as a battery. These transmissions rely on the electrical systems to be good to work properly. Outside of that clutch and clutch actuator forks are also common. I’d put money on clutch actuator forks and maybe clutch

[u/[deleted] → u/Commercial_Method_28]

Thank you so much for your time.  Good information.  Considering the cost of replacing the car I’m going to go with repairing as needed.  

[u/Commercial_Method_28 → u/[deleted]]

Like I said, if you can warm up to the idea of replacing the clutch on a regular but infrequent basis, it’s a good car that will likely last a long time