This weeks Autoline After Hours titled "The Story Behind The Story of Fords Transmission Problems" features writer Phoebe Howard from the Detroit Free Press. This is available as audio or video and is well worth a listen/watch.
http://www.autoline.tv/journal/?p=62700
The short of the story is that Ford internal documents prove that they knew about the issues well before the products went on sale.
The original article is titled "Ford knew Focus, Fiesta models had flawed transmission, sold them anyway".
https://www.freep.com/in-depth/money...ct/1671198001/
Fords response.
https://www.freep.com/story/money/ca...on/1759446001/
"Ford secretly tells dealers: Fix faulty Focus, Fiesta transmissions until July 19"
https://www.freep.com/story/money/ca...ta/1766990001/
Frankly makes it hard to be a loyal Ford customer/fan with crap like this.