Back in April, a new lawsuit – Gerkarrah Jones, et al., v. Ford Motor Company – was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan alleging that certain 2010-2020 Ford Fusion and 2009-2021 Ford Escape models equipped with the 6F35 transmission were defective, though the Escape ditched this particular gearbox as part of its 2020 redesign. The lawsuit claimed that the gearbox experiences a number of common issues, including shaking, jerking, shuddering when accelerating, slipping gears, hesitation, loss of power, hard shifts, and even complete failure, in some instances. Now, however, that same lawsuit has been dismissed by a judge.
According to Car Complaints, Judge Sean F. Cox ultimately decided to dismiss the case after noting that only one plaintiff was named in the original lawsuit, though it also contains the names of 4,000 other owners that were not referenced anywhere in the filing itself, strangely enough. As such, Ford filed a motion asking that the judge drop those 4,000 names from the class-action, a request that Cox ultimately granted.
“Notably, this is not a class action,” Cox said. “This case was filed as a mass action and these nearly four thousand individuals seek to litigate their claims against Ford on an individual basis. The First Amended Complaint broadly alleges that these thousands of individuals experienced one or more of a litany of problems with their vehicles, that they attribute to one or more of at least fifteen different possible defects.” Cox also stated that these claims pertaining to Ford 6F35 transmission woes were “misjoined,” and said that allowing the case to move forward as a single class-action “would be impractical and unmanageable.” However, the judge did note that those 4,000 customers were free to refile individual lawsuits regardless, though the only named plaintiff in this lawsuit opted to voluntarily dismiss all of her claims.
The original class-action claimed that Ford “unlawfully induced them to purchase or lease their respective vehicles by concealing a material fact (the defective transmission). Ford, however, continued to install these defective transmissions in Fusion and Escape vehicles, even though Ford knew of their defects undisclosed to owners, lessees, and prospective purchasers, and lessees. Even worse, Ford repeatedly lied to consumers as to the reasons for the problems consumers experienced.”
Comments
Ford is a master at this nonsense and it’s DISGUSTING. Hope they refile the proper way.
The 6F35 is not a bad gearbox, in my experience. Ford’s mistake is in their insane service interval on them. They should be getting a drain and fill every 15k-25k miles. I don’t know if it is the Mercon LV or the gearboxes, but it will loose all viscosity and be full of trash by 50k. Ford is not the only manufacturer to do this, but manufacturer service intervals have all become pretty suss since 15′ (like CVTs can actually last a long time with a 20k-30k fluid change).
Hopefully the unlucky owners will never buy a Ford product ever again.
I’ve been a ASE certified mechanic for over 30 years and I’m I total agreement the service intervol time / mileage is to far apart if people would also use the oe required fluids and this universal fluid crap the have now we’d have 75 % less winning about bad transmissions that’s for the do it yourself crowd and jiffy lube folks where they use sub grade oils and transmission fluids
My 6F35 is still going at 75k miles but I also change the trans. oil every 20k miles with full synthetic oil. Seems fine so far. Once in a while I get an odd shift but still goes. Reminds me about how people complained of the cd4e transmission. I have 190k miles on the original box and change oil often. Still going. Oil changes are huge. Don’t believe the recommended interval.
People are way too spoiled these days. Back in the 60’s, and into the 80’s, automatic transmissions had tons of issues.
What we see these days isn’t so bad. Working the bugs out can take years. I always perform 30K fluid changes, and I also perform any and all updates to the valve body. Typically shift kits from Sonnax or TransGo, fix problems that the OEM can’t. I wish car manufacturers would work together, with the aftermarket transmission companies.
Ive had my 16 fusion for less than a year and bought it at 76,000 miles had to get a new trans before it hit 100, 000 and now at 111,000 gotta get ANOTHER trans. The judge dismissing this case was WRONG. I’ve taken it to 4 different Ford dealerships and they all dismissed me until finally the 4th one said I need a new transmission. Never again will I buy a ford