So, long story short in case anyone wonders what happened with this disaster. I took the trip to the selling dealer 600 miles away. Took a ride with the service manager, which tried explaining to me that the automated manual that I have isn't as smooth as a traditional tranny. I told him I have the 6f15 not the automated manual. So we went for a ride and of course the car is having an exceptionally good day. Honestly, not sure if they may have reset the shift patterns before we went on a ride. I did manage to get the car to mildly do what it does wrong. His reply to me? It isn't a cvt, you are going to feel it shift. So basically he told me it wasn't that bad. He agreed to replace the heated steering wheel which obviously wasn't heating evenly. But he knew it had to be done by Thursday of that week because I was then headed back home. So, he ordered the steering wheel and I went back to my hotel which was 90 min away. Come Thursday I went back to the dealer, 90 min drive away. They didn't get the steering wheel in time. Went back to my hotel 90 min away and called Ford to see what now? They said that they want the car to tear down the tranny and see what is going on. I told them it would have to happen today (Thursday) because I am headed home at 5am since it is a 12 hour drive. They said to get the car to the dealer and then I can find a way to Enterprise to rent myself a car on my dime for the trip home. I was like NO, I am not paying for a rental and my car while you have it in the shop for who knows how long. They said (FORD), they would see what they could do and for me to call the dealership and arrange to drop it off. This was already around 1pm and it needed to happen soon if it was going to be dropped off. Called the dealer and nobody had a clue as to what was going on. The service manager was supposed to call me back and never did. Called again and he was "busy with a customer", they ignored me and never returned any calls. So basically they don't really care. Ended up driving it back home, wasted trip and an additional 2,000 miles on my car. Dealer even had enough guts to call me and let me know that they now don't know what to do with the steering wheel since I didn't let them replace it. Like I was going to go 90 min out of my way before a 12 hour trip home to let them put on a steering wheel at some point during that day then drive home for 13.5 hours.
So basically Ford was of no help, my car obviously doesn't come with a warranty since I can not get anyone to honor it. Ford has now called and wants to get it into a local dealer and take a look at it. The most recent tune that was put on the car basically avoids 2nd gear since that is where the problem exists. So it only uses 2nd if it absolutely has to. If I drive it in manual mode, I can shift it into 2nd and get it to do it's slip/clunk thing just about every time. But now if you slow down for a turn and then continue, it continues in third at 1,000 rpm. It doesn't really matter how much it acts up because the dealers don't want to fix it anyway. So I contacted an attorney and we will see what happens with that. My problem is that I am getting close to the one year cap on doing anything lemon law related so this will either fix it, or it will now truly be my problem. Only time will tell at this point. Never ,ever buying a Ford product and probably never a new car again. It seems to be a waste of money, nobody seems to honor a warranty claim. Glad I have my old LeSabre around to drive, which is reliable and cost me just over one of my car payments on the Focus. I guess I will update if anything else happens, my guess is I will be stuck with this one. Lesson learned
