Ford Australia faces class action for faulty transmissions

The car making giant’s local arm could be forced to pay millions to owners of more than 65,000 vehicles in Australia.

Ford could be forced to pay millions of dollars in compensation to Australians for faulty vehicles.

The issue revolves around faulty PowerShift dual-clutch automatic transmissions, which experienced problems such as shuddering, delayed and jerky acceleration and failing to start.

This auto gearbox was fitted to popular models such as the Ford Fiesta and Focus small hatchback and the Ford EcoSport small SUV. Ford no longer uses these transmissions in any of its vehicles.

Several popular Ford models, inlcuding the Focus hatchback, were affected.

Ford no longer sells the EcoSport in Australia and only offers high-performance versions of the Fiesta and Focus, which are not equipped with this type of transmission.

The PowerShift transmission issue affected about 65,000 vehicles and compensation could be worth hundreds of millions.

The Federal Court has already found in favour of the lead applicant Biljana Capic. Justice Perram’s judgment found Ms Capic’s Ford Focus did not comply with the guarantee of “acceptable quality’’ and ordered Ford to pay $17,248.19 plus interest.

Justice Perram at the Federal Court was expected to hand down a ruling today that would decide how many vehicles would be potentially eligible for damages as part of the class action lawsuit.

The Ford EcoSport is no longer sold in Australia.

Instead the court couldn’t rule in either’s favour and required the two parties to confer and submit within 14 days a consolidated list of questions and answers, which will enable the court to pass judgment.

In April 2018 Ford Australia was hit with a $10m fine by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for “unconscionable conduct” for failing to fix the dodgy transmissions on cars built between 2011 and 2015.

Graeme Whickman, the then President and CEO of Ford Australia, apologised for the company’s reaction to the faulty transmissions at the time.

The PowerShift automatic transmission was faulty.

“We took too long to identify the issues and we acknowledge that PowerShift customers did not have complaints handled appropriately between May 2015 and February 2016,” said Whickman.

“We were overwhelmed with the volume of complaints and, while it was not intended, over a ten-month period our processes were inadequate and information provided was either inaccurate or incomplete. We let our customers down and for that we are sorry.”

Originally published as Ford Australia faces class action for faulty transmissions