Ford 4F27E (FN4A-EL)

The four-speed automatic in the small Fords and Mazdas — the Focus, Fiesta, C-Max and Transit Connect, and the Mazda2, Mazda6 and Protegé.

It is one gearbox with two names, and neither company's literature mentions the other: Ford calls it the 4F27E and sometimes Durashift, Mazda the FN4A-EL. A Focus owner and a Mazda6 owner are researching the same transmission, and each will find perhaps half of what exists.

Its failure is the solenoid pack and the valve body, and the symptom is characteristic enough to be worth learning: a harsh or delayed engagement into drive, and a 2–3 change that flares — the engine rising briefly between gears. It arrives gradually and it is very often blamed on the clutch packs, which are usually still serviceable at that stage.

The fluid is a specific Ford or Mazda specification, not a generic Dexron, and these were built before sealed-for-life became a habit — so a drain and refill on schedule genuinely prevents the above rather than merely postponing it.

Do not confuse it with the PowerShift. Ford's later dry dual-clutch replaced it in some of the same cars and has an entirely different, far worse-known set of problems; the tell is whether the car creeps like an automatic, which this one does and the PowerShift does not.