David Smit
Member
Hi all, and thanks in advance for your thoughts and help.
I recently bought a 2009 Expedition 4x4 with 165k on the clock. For the first four days it was perfect, but of course on day 5 I noticed a slip in the tranny, primarily in gears 3 and 4, and only when I was using low to moderate throttle. The slip seems worse when the truck is still cold.
A few days later I put it into reverse when cold in the morning and the engine shuddered and almost stalled. I put it into drive and it again shuddered. About 30 seconds later it was fine. Every time I put it into gear when it's cold in the morning, it tends to shudder now.
So, not being one to ask questions without trying to research and fix it first, I replaced all the plugs and the coil packs. That wasn't it.
Then I decided to do a half flush on the tranny without dropping the pan. I was able to get about 3.5 quarts out of the tranny, but when I put new Mercon LV in and ran it a few times to get the fluid level right it took 6 quarts to fill! So it was low by 2.5 quarts for who knows how long (I does have a very minor looking seep at the rear of the pan). The slipping and shudder still happen, though I suspect they're not as bad as before.
At this point I'm thinking I'll have to get the transmission rebuilt or get one with low miles from a salvage yard and have them swapped. I do have to get the PCM totally reprogrammed because I had both oxygen sensor codes come up simultaneously, which is a known software fault (when it rains it pours, right?). I know this will also reset the transmission programming, so I'll wait for that before I do anything drastic in hopes it may solve the problem, but I highly doubt it.
In the meantime, who can help me? I've seen the shudder problem among f150 threads, but their symptoms don't seem to be the same as mine. I'm wondering if it may be a torque converter issue?
I recently bought a 2009 Expedition 4x4 with 165k on the clock. For the first four days it was perfect, but of course on day 5 I noticed a slip in the tranny, primarily in gears 3 and 4, and only when I was using low to moderate throttle. The slip seems worse when the truck is still cold.
A few days later I put it into reverse when cold in the morning and the engine shuddered and almost stalled. I put it into drive and it again shuddered. About 30 seconds later it was fine. Every time I put it into gear when it's cold in the morning, it tends to shudder now.
So, not being one to ask questions without trying to research and fix it first, I replaced all the plugs and the coil packs. That wasn't it.
Then I decided to do a half flush on the tranny without dropping the pan. I was able to get about 3.5 quarts out of the tranny, but when I put new Mercon LV in and ran it a few times to get the fluid level right it took 6 quarts to fill! So it was low by 2.5 quarts for who knows how long (I does have a very minor looking seep at the rear of the pan). The slipping and shudder still happen, though I suspect they're not as bad as before.
At this point I'm thinking I'll have to get the transmission rebuilt or get one with low miles from a salvage yard and have them swapped. I do have to get the PCM totally reprogrammed because I had both oxygen sensor codes come up simultaneously, which is a known software fault (when it rains it pours, right?). I know this will also reset the transmission programming, so I'll wait for that before I do anything drastic in hopes it may solve the problem, but I highly doubt it.
In the meantime, who can help me? I've seen the shudder problem among f150 threads, but their symptoms don't seem to be the same as mine. I'm wondering if it may be a torque converter issue?