Congratulations on your escape from New Jersey. I gotta get out of New York before it's too late. Before you put in a trans cooler, try using the Ford transmission fluid. There's a lot of junk out there that most shops use.
It was done at Anderson Ford in Kingman, AZ. So I just assumed they used Motorcraft trans fluid.
If your trans fluid and xfer case fluid (two totally separate items) are dark brown after only 6 month you have a more serious problem. The color change is likely from friction material coming off inside.
Wasn't dark brown. Was a darker shade of red than new, but then it had about 15K miles on it. They saved some of the supposedly drained fluid to show me how dark it was; I didn't ask whether it came from the xfer case or trans. They were a bit surprised when I just dipped my finger into it to check it; it was a dark red....you know, kind of like what it might have been after many thousands miles. No metal sparkling, doesn't look brown at all. So I don't really know. No trans or xfer case symptoms. With severe arthritis in both knees, if I kneel down on anything I'm going to have trouble walking for a week or two. But once I'm settled in, in AZ, I plan to get to the bottom of this. To avoid the knee damage, I just use a couple of ropes to ease my ass down onto a creeper, then reverse the process when I'm done. It's a pain to have to do it a lot (I'm fat) but I just look at it as some extra exercise.
The previous trans change of fluid before last year was done during a trans overhaul in early 2016, about a year before I purchased the truck, I have the records and receipt from the shop (PO saved all his receipts) and it seemed to be running fine. Over the past couple of years, and a dozen or so trips back and forth from NJ to AZ, I thought maybe I should just change the fluid again. Can't hurt. But in the heat out in the southwest, I figure more cooling capacity won't be a bad idea, either.
Does the OBD2 sensors monitor trans and/or xfer case fluid temp in these vehicles? Did the XLT versions have a beefier trans fluid cooler? Does the xfer case fluid need or have a inline cooler? The current cooler looks stock, and is way smaller (maybe a third of the size) than the aftermarket one that I ran on my Jeep Wagoneer years ago.
What coolers were available for these vehicles from Ford back then (2008)? It's a base model.
I don't tow anything. But I do carry a full load of stuff often, and just blast up the mountain passes uphill grades to get past trucks who are trying to pass each other, before they need to pull out into the passing lane (I know what it's like to have to maintain speed going uphill from driving slower vehicles years ago), so I don't want to make it difficult for them to do that).
On a side bar, it seems that this truck (plain white with the plain black grill) seems to give a lot of people the willies when I pull in right behind them into the passing lane; they slow way down so I think maybe they think I'm a cop. The fact that I often wear a hat (common flat brim Clint Eastwood style western hat) that might also easily be mistaken for one of those trooper hats, and sunglasses, probably doesn't help the issue. May also be the reason no troopers ever chase me when I'm doing 95?
I've had the car back for a while now. No new problems. I told them to leave the HVAC thingy alone, I can change that before summer comes on my own. There's a youtube video of a guy doing it without removing all the R Rear interior panels, and he had a link to the amazon part, too. So it will be a cheap job I can do while listening to the radio and enjoying a cold beer.
