Anybody Receive "transmission Overheating Stop Safely" Message On Your Ford Vehicle

I just got to know that a Focus owner has encountered several issues with his 2-month old vehicle. Firstly, he couldn't start the vehicle twice due to some complications in the battery. After the battery was recharged at the service centre, no more issues on that one.

However, just recently he got into trouble again with the vehicle, this time the transmission. He was stuck in a massive traffic jam recently and at crawling speeds he received a message on the display "Transmission Overheating Stop Safely". I presume in crawling speeds the transmission is constantly working or shifting between gears. Coupled by frequent brake application, this may have caused the message to come up. However, I am surprised that he can still drive the vehicle even though he has received this Transmission Overheating message. In the Owner's Manual page 92, it was mentioned that the user will not be able to drive the vehicle until the transmission has cooled down.

My question is, has anybody experienced this with your Focus when the vehicle is stuck in crawling traffic jam situations for say an hour or so?

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Read this from Australia. Their Focus is the same as ours.

http://forums.whirlp...archive/2021983

Thanks. It appears to be true that Thailand is exporting the Focus to Malaysia and Australia.

Have you encountered any issue with the transmission overheating message popping up on the display before? I wonder if any other Ford users (Kuga, S-Max, Fiesta etc.) have experienced any issues when the vehicle is stuck in a massive traffic jam.

Just stumbled upon an Australian review of the Focus. Although they are getting the Focus from Thailand, it appears that there might be a slight variation between the Focus models that we are getting and theirs? An excerpt from the review as follows:-

The 17-inch tyres also play their part because ride quality becomes lumpier on the more expensive Focus Titanium that also employs the sports suspension but sits on bigger, 18-inch wheels.

The Titanium model they are getting comes with 18" wheels whereas ours are in 16" wheels.

http://www.caradvice...sport-review-4/

More info on the driving style may shed more lights. As when stuck in jam and crawl , what does the driver do ?
1) Keep in D all the time and step on brakes.
2) or, Shift to N immediately when stopped, and shift to D to crawl, then back to N, ...
3) or, Shift from D-N-R-P when stopped. Shift from P-R-N-D when crawl. Repeat ...

Apparently was on 1. Some advice to use 2. when driving in traffic jams but not all that practical if the vehicle is constantly moving and not stationary for long.

The principle is similar to driving a manual car, when traffic jam, you will put the clutch to N and won't constantlly engage the gear and keep pressing on the clutch pedal on a manual car.

Here only the ST gets 18".

18" gives you a sportier look, better road feel but harsher ride and more road noise. 16" is the direct opposite. The hatchback's 17" alloys shod with 50 series tyres seem like a good compromise.

Yes, a small caveat though. With Manual transmission, one can switch to N while the vehicle is moving, letting it glide slowly before coming to a complete halt. You can't do that with most vehicles which come with Automatic transmission, especially the Focus with the dual-clutch I think. We will need to wait for the vehicle to come to a complete stop before we can switch from D to N. If the wait to switch from N to D is considerably long before the vehicle in front starts moving, say 4 to 5 seconds then it's still practical to switch to N. But if it's just 1 second before we need to switch to D again, then it's quite a chore with frequent gear changes.

Anyway I get your point. It is certainly wise to put the vehicle to N whenever possible.

Yes i agree. The 17" wheels on the Sports is a good compromise and certainly looks better than the 16" wheels on the Titanium sedan. 18" is just too much, though for a more performance-orientated vehicle like the ST that is comprehensible.