2013 Ford Focus 125 ecoboost zetec petrol, manual - Clutch slave cylinder leaking - ajohnh

My car, which has done 32K miles from new has been diagnosed with a leaking clutch slave cylinder, the repair bill will be in the £4-600 range. I have read in Honest John that this is a fairly common problem on this model.

The car was bought from a Ford dealership & has been maintained by them.

Can anyone tell me whether this failure, after such a mileage, is likely to

get Ford to make a contribution to the repair cost.

Thanks for any advice.

JohnH

2013 Ford Focus 125 ecoboost zetec petrol, manual - Clutch slave cylinder leaking - Paulsxf

Very unlikely that Ford would want to know. They seemed to have clutch problems on the Mk3 Focus and C-Max's around that time.

If I was paying to have the gearbox off then I would consider having the clutch replaced at the same time.

2013 Ford Focus 125 ecoboost zetec petrol, manual - Clutch slave cylinder leaking - Falkirk Bairn

Well known faults with clutch slave cylinder on the 1 litre 3 pot (& other Ford engines) - people were having clutches fail at low mileages - 5,000 & Ford denied any blame.

They finally acknowledged issues when the river of problems became a flood.

2013 Ford Focus 125 ecoboost zetec petrol, manual - Clutch slave cylinder leaking - ajohnh

Thanks for your info. Any idea where I might find Ford's acknowledgement in writing ?

2013 Ford Focus 125 ecoboost zetec petrol, manual - Clutch slave cylinder leaking - ajohnh

I took my car to my Ford dealer & had the clutch, DMF & clutch slave cylinder replaced at a cost of £1,100. They confirmed that the entire problem was due to the leaking slave cylinder. I requested they sought a contribution from Ford as the warranty only expired 5 months ago. Within a week I had a 55% contribution. A good result, but it is a pity Ford does not reimburse 100% for such a well known problem.

2013 Ford Focus 125 ecoboost zetec petrol, manual - Clutch slave cylinder leaking - gordonbennet

I should hope they did offer some contribution, £1100 bill for that work is frankly ridiculous, i'd have expected that sort of bill on some £40k bling machine not a standard Focus.

Can anyone tell me what the slave cylinder, an item known for decades to be prone to leaks, is doing inside the bell housing in the first place?

In days when cars, and the world in general, were more sensible, the slave cylinder would be bolted or clamped somehow to the outside of bell housing and would simply push a lever which operated the clutch through a suitable pivot through the bell housing casing.

Last time i looked there was nothing wrong with this system, the worst that ever happened was the slave cylinder leaked, which meant a 5/20 minute cylinder swap then fresh fluid and 6 pumps on the clutch to bleed it out, job done, in extreme cases the operating level might break or bend if a poor design, but in many cases the lever was able to be replaced without removing the gearbox.

What exactly is the benefit from an internal slave cylinder, apart that is from emptying the wallets of victims of such pointles design.

Edited by gordonbennet on 12/01/2017 at 19:19

2013 Ford Focus 125 ecoboost zetec petrol, manual - Clutch slave cylinder leaking - daveyjp
Ford have done this for many years. In the 90s My dad had a new Fiesta which had a slave cylinder fail after a few hundred miles.