Manual transmission scraping noise / grinding sound

[WestVirginia]

Don’t worry too much. Your warranty should cover everything. unless You just learned to drive a manual I highly doubt the clutch problem is due to driver error.

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[Cavalanche]

Don’t worry too much. Your warranty should cover everything. unless You just learned to drive a manual I highly doubt the clutch problem is due to driver error.

Thanks! I've got a couple hundred thousand miles of stick time, and only had to replace one, but still it'd be bitter pill to swallow.

 

[Broncola]

Started cooling off in Hawaii last week with morning temps in the mid 60s. Got the noises again. Anyway I’ve been on the fence about getting it checked at this point.

Wanted to double check about the standard warranty cause I’m at about 33k. This issue would be covered under the 50,000 powertrain warranty, correct?

 

[Ducati1098]

New to the site and forum. New Bronco owner. Purchased 2023 Badlands 2.3 MT with 1200 miles back in Sept. Noticed the cold start noise on startup a couple of weeks ago. All the symptoms laid out in the TSB. Would go away after driving a few miles and didn't think too much about it.

Driving home last week late, stopped at a traffic light and noticed the smell of burning oil with no other vehicles around and got concerned. When I got home, I took a peek under the truck with a flashlight and saw some evidence of oil leaking. Generally below the front diff input pinion, with some oil splatter and residual on the bottom of the skid plate and on the split line of what I think is the differential housing.

I booked a service appt with the nearest Ford dealer (full disclosure, I purchased the vehicle at Carmax) that evening for a drop off the next week for a diagnosis. They called me back the next day and asked if I could drop it off.

When I dropped the truck off, the primary concern was the oil leak, but also asked them to check out the grinding noise at startup as well.

I dropped the vehicle off last Tues, and got a call back from a Service Advisor on Friday telling me that I have a bad clutch. He immediately advised that the clutch is a wear item, but they were checking with Ford to see if they would cover replacement under warranty. The vehicle currently has 5600 miles on it.

In the meantime I stumbled across this post and another on Bronco Nation. One of the posts had a video of another Bronco with the identical grinding, cold start issue and referenced the TSB. It could have been my vehicle in that video.

Here are my concerns

1. I have not experienced any issues with the truck that would indicate a clutch issue. There are no issues with slippage, lag, slop, difficulty shifting, getting into or out of gear. I've owned several manual transmission vehicles over the years and have only had to replace a clutch once, on a 92 Cavalier with 180,000 mi at the time. At 5600 miles, and I understand that I cannot account for 1200 of them, this seems premature. I don't ride the clutch in traffic, don't beat on the truck, run it at high RPM etc. I know that if someone who can't/doesn't know how to drive a standard can burn up a friction disk pretty quick, but I've been driving it for the last 4400 miles with no issues.

How would a tech diagnose this? From discussing the issues with a friend who is an automotive tech, he mentioned that the symptoms with the grinding noise could be similar to a bad throw out bearing.

Depending on what I hear back from the service advisor, could someone recommend a proper response? I'm fearful of a misdiagnosis of a faulty clutch, especially now with knowledge of this TSB. I am somewhat new to the area that I am now living in and made this appointment at the closest Ford dealer to my house. I'm not sure of the quality of their troubleshooting, or how they could land on bad clutch. Are they just trying to soak me for a few grand on a non-warrantied repair? What are the chances that Ford will cover a clutch replacement? Do I have any recourse if they deny it?

I'm just anxious about the next interaction I'm going to have with the service department and am looking for advice

2. The fluid leak, seems straight forward. However when the service advisor called to tell me about the clutch, I asked him about the oil leak, which was the primary reason I made the appointment. He told me that the tech that diagnosed the clutch issue did not annotate anything about investigating this.

I love this rig, and I hate the idea of having buyers remorse. I was looking for one for over a year and finally found one that had the low miles I desired and didn't get beat up too bad on the price.
Thanks in advance for any advice

You can always bring it to a different dealership and get a second opinion

 

[Ducati1098]

Started cooling off in Hawaii last week with morning temps in the mid 60s. Got the noises again. Anyway I’ve been on the fence about getting it checked at this point.

Wanted to double check about the standard warranty cause I’m at about 33k. This issue would be covered under the 50,000 powertrain warranty, correct?

Yes it would be covered by powertrain. 5 year/60k mile

 

[Cisco]

We have been waiting for all the parts and toold to arrive at the dealership. We dropped Cisco off at the dealership yesterday and hope things go smoothly! Based on people's results we are cautiously optimistic.

 

[indio22]

Yes, I am a tech. However the transmission assembly is only 1200$ over the counter from Ford.

Wait am I understanding this correctly, a replacement manual trans is only $1200? Does that apply to any customer, and is it the AB version (having the supposed fix)? I wonder if that is a short term price or will hold up over time.

Down the road in the event of a post warranty trans failure, for someone handy and up for a garage swap, that $1200 is not bad.

 

[RagnarKon]

Wait am I understanding this correctly, a replacement manual trans is only $1200? Does that apply to any customer, and is it the AB version (having the supposed fix)? I wonder if that is a short term price or will hold up over time.

Down the road in the event of a post warranty trans failure, for someone handy and up for a garage swap, that $1200 is not bad.

With the core charge it’s around $1750 last I checked. $600 core, so yeah… once you trade in for your core price is roughly $1200.

Like most auto parts it’s heavily driven by supply/demand. And if Ford is short on parts on the assembly line they will start charging “F*ck you” prices to deter people from buying.

 

[BigFootie]

With the core charge it’s around $1750 last I checked. $600 core, so yeah… once you trade in for your core price is roughly $1200.

Like most auto parts it’s heavily driven by supply/demand. And if Ford is short on parts on the assembly line they will start charging “F*ck you” prices to deter people from buying.

I think @Ducati1098 said the low price on ver. AB is because Ver. AC is coming or is out.

 

[Ducati1098]

I think @Ducati1098 said the low price on ver. AB is because Ver. AC is coming or is out.

Yeah just a guess at this point. But this is what happened when AB was coming out. The price for the AA trans dropped to a similar amount.

 

[BigFootie]

Yeah just a guess at this point. But this is what happened when AB was coming out. The price for the AA trans dropped to a similar amount.

Your guess is normally better than our matter of facts!

 

[CliffordTheBigRedBronco]

I'll update and say that after about 500 miles my brand new AB transmission was grinding yesterday around 30°.

 

[thesocalexplorer]

I'll update and say that after about 500 miles my brand new AB transmission was grinding yesterday around 30°.

Wow, that's wild. I guess the "getrag rattle" is real...

 

[gtabert]

I'll update and say that after about 500 miles my brand new AB transmission was grinding yesterday around 30°.

Thats a bummer, is there another latest and greatest replacement part number or is the AB the one for now?

 

[CliffordTheBigRedBronco]

Thats a bummer, is there another latest and greatest replacement part number or is the AB the one for now?

To my knowledge and our Field Service Engineer the AB is the most current updated versions. Will there be an AC? AD? AE? They could update this 10 times and not fix it. Who knows. I'm used to Ford doing things this way unfortunately

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