2015 Ford Kuga Pricing and Specs

This crops us frequently as a dispute between car owners and dealerships and it's all because of one thing: Extended warranties are generally not worth the paper they're printed on. They're designed to relieve car buyers of more money, thinking they'll be covered if the worst happens. Usually, the warranty is carefully written to avoid paying out on the things most likely to go wrong. Never has 'read the fine print' been so important.

Consider that the warranty your purchased only covers the first $3500 of an engine replacement. Where on earth can an engine be replaced for that sort of money? It's a clear case of the fine print giving the warranty provider a convenient escape clause. Don't forget, this extended warranty is not a Ford factory warranty, it's a third party deal that car-dealers love because they get a kick-back from the warranty company every time a car buyer signs on that dotted line. Dealers also love these warranties because it forces owners into over-servicing their cars. Does it not seem strange that the car designed and engineered by Ford to have a 12-monthly service interval suddenly needs a six-monthly service as part of the warranty conditions?

As far as the replacement engine goes, be very careful about what you're being offered. If the engine is, indeed, a reconditioned engine, it doesn't really matter how many kilometres it has already done because reconditioned means it has been fully rebuilt with new parts. If, however, it's a second-hand engine plucked from a wrecked Kuga, then I would argue that an engine with the same mileage as the one in your car should be fitted. But I'll guarantee you there's some fine print in that warranty that makes me wrong about that, too.

Australian-delivered Fords didn’t get a five-year warranty until May 2018, so I’m assuming the warranty you’re talking about is an aftermarket one sold to you by the dealer when you bought the car a year ago. If so, then there’s very little chance that it will cover a failed clutch (or anything else much, for that matter) as these warranties are notoriously worthless. Disputing the ruling could well be a lost cause as the fine-print in the warranty will doubtless be written to favour the insurer.

However, I fail to see how a failed clutch could cause a manual gearbox to fail, other than if the clutch was slowly dying and you were forced, over a period of time, to be brutal with the gear-shifter to select gears that didn’t want to cooperate. There is the chance that a clutch-pack breaking to pieces inside a dual-clutch transmission could, indeed, cause such a catastrophic failure, but as you haven’t told me what type of gearbox is fitted to your car, it’s a bit hard to say. That said, the Kuga got the wet-clutch version of Ford’s dual-clutch and not the vastly more troublesome dry-clutch Powershift unit. For that reason, the Kuga was not part of the recall that Ford issued for Ecosports, Fiestas and Focusses for transmission failures.

I am reluctant to recommend any European car, particularly those from VW, because of the problems that have soured the ownership experience for so many people. Rather than those you name I would be looking at the Toyota RAV4, Honda CR-V or Suzuki Vitara.