I bought a used 2002 F-150 Supercab with the 5.4 V8. It had 55k miles on it. I put about 1k on it and the transmission gave out. When the auto trans. would downshift when I'd be slowing down the tires would lock up squak on the pavement..then drive fine. Then shortly after that, less than a mile down the road...it was trying to shift from second to third and would just stop accelerating. It wouldn't drive unless I put it in second gear. I had to drive it all the way to the dealer like this. They had it for about 3 weeks. A few days of trying to figure out what was wrong with the transmission...then a week of figuring out if the warranty company wanted to put a used transmission or rebuild the old one...then the rest of the three weeks fixing the problem. The dealership said it was some solenoid that opens and closes to allow transmission fluid into the transmission that failed. The gears ended up having no fluid and eventually the gears failed. Has anyone else heard of this happening before? I'm pretty damn disappointed because I feel like I'm going to have problems with the truck for the rest of the time I own it and I JUST bought it. Is a rebuilt transmission going to be reliable?? There is a 3yr/36k mi warranty on the rebuilt tranny. Should I be pissed or accept that freak stuff like this happens?

 

Sorry to hear you've had such trouble with your new toy. Hard to say, though, how it was cared for by the PO. Could be a case of mistreatment, or just an unlucky break.

As for the re-build, just like anything else, it'll depend on the quality of the service. A 3/36 warranty sounds reasonable. It wasn't that long ago when that's all you got on the whole driveline from new.

I'm sure others with better knowledge will chime in with more specific info.

Andy

 

Rebuilt transmissions are only as good as the rebuilder who builds them can make them. Most shops have guys who know chevy's inside and out and hate fords, so they don't care.
Alan

 

Dude youve got me scared. last couple of days my O/D light has been blinking and I can feel it downshift from 2nd to 1st when slowing down but not very hard and I havent taken it to get checked out yet. I was thinking it is minor but today it seems like the 2nd to 1st shift is getting harder. Everything else seems normal.

 

I paid $26k for a new 2001 "F" 150 SuperCrew. At 20k miles, the tranny took a dump under warranty. "F"ord had to pay for the rebuild. Now at 50K miles, the POS just dumped another tranny failure in my lap. I took it to Worthington "F"ord to repair it. They spent all day sucking money out of a recall fix on some POS speed control and charged me $130 for nothing. I called them to ask for status and they gave me the big shove off telling me to go ahead and drive home in that POS with my two kids. I had them drive us in the Courtesy Van instead. I took a cab back later, picked that POS "F"150 up to drive it home and within a few blocks, it lost all fwd and rev gears in the middle of the road. Now I am renting a car, (not a POS "F"ord), while I have it towed to Cres-O-Matic to have it overhauled.

I am sick to my stomach. I have driven exclusively "F"ords for almost 30 yrs. After getting "F"'d by this POS "F"ord, I will NEVER buy another. Especially since that jerkoff cretin Bill "F"ord is dragging production down to mexico. Won't those be some special "F"'d up POS's!

It sucks now that I need to buy a real truck, (one that will run without self destroying itself), and there are no choices. Dodges are junk. Chevys are mexican built junk. I won't even consider a jap junker from Toyota, Nissan, Isuzu or other American hating countries of origin. It looks like I need to machine my own truck from scratch.

For you other "F"ord victims, I hope you ALL turn your backs on "F"ord and let them take the big swirly into oblivion. Once great, now trash.

 

dammit

 

Your first mistake was taking it to Worthington ford. That guy has been kicked out of so many states... If you are talking about the Anchorage one, take it to Stepp Brothers... they are a Lincoln dealer and take Ford work too. If not in AK, find ANY other dealership to take it to. Cal Worthington is a CROOK, the service dept. sucks. I could start a whole forum on the ways that "Cal" has wasted days of my time and thousands of dollars of my money.

 

Hey Fordmanforever, i'd definitely get that checked out right away. My OD light wasn't flashing when the tranny gave out..but the whole hard downshift things sounds pretty familiar. I feel your pain!! Hope you have a warranty on it. I fortunately opted for the $1000 3/36k warranty for my truck..the warranty company only paid 1500 for the transmission repair..the dealer ate the 800 in labor..helps that he is my friends uncle. Just hope his guys knew what they were doing. I love the truck...just wish this hadn't happened...to me.

 

AMOSIER... Dude I feel your pain My 06 SuperCrew lariat 4X4 with only 720 miles on it had a strange problem. My family and I were traveling down the road approx. 60 mph and the truck bucked and just died... coasted to a stop. Tried to crank it up, engine spun over fine but it was like no spark/fuel available. Called FORD road side assistance. The guy on the phone said (And I quote) "We get this all the time" "Just remove the negative post from the battery and wait about five minutes and then reconnect" "Everything should work after that" Guess what it cranked right up. I took it to the "S"tealership the next day and dropped it off... explained problem and said "Fix It" Five days later the dealership called me and said it is FIX'ed. Picked it up and own the way home "Jerk___BUCK" coast to a stop... They keep it two days and replaced the ECM/PCM and I now have over 8K miles with know problems but I am just waiting to get stranded again. Kind of lost confidence...

However I love the truck. Most every car maker has problems. The BIGGEST issue is "SERVICE AFTER THE SALE" I will not return to this "bassackwards" dealership again. Very RUDE and worthless. Oh Yes, I did write a letter to FORD's Customer Relationship Center... No response yet. BoB

 

That sucks.
I just had my '05 get a new engine put in it after the #8 injector froze open and hydrolocked the engine. Now the tards at Customer Relations wont quit calling me three-four times a day after just two days back with the truck.
I told them the first three calls "I am not happy with the B.S. I went through with the dealer and I will c all you when I have the truck for a while to tell you how I think they did on it!"
They didn't seem to like it. Today is the first day in two weeks that they have not called me.

 

hey guys i feel your pain my dad's 5.4L expedition had the tranny cooler return line crimped at the manufacturing plant. it decided to take a dump and expel 90% of it's life on a 7% grade in the mountains of lake tahoe while we were towing a 10,000 lb. fully loaded trailer. the dealership didn't believe us when we said it was dead at 18. months old with 16000 miles on it. they replaced the pump seal and drove it straight back up the mountain for a test drive and it completely died on them. after they got it back to the dealership, they had a new tranny delivered from somewhere in socal and had it finished in 6 days. the only thing we paid for on that extended vacation was laundry and food, service was great, but after that we had a small leak whenever we towed, it took 4 trips to Sunset Ford and four sets of gaskets, but they finally fixed it.

anyways it seems to me that the "heavy-duty" trannys that they put on this V-8 are junk, and the only to get stuff taken care of at a dealer is find one that you can kinda trust a little or make friends with a service writer.

i've seen this problem a few times before in toyota landcrunchers, the only people that know how to fix this type of problem are uncertifed idiots that put trannys together dry, torque everything by "feel", and force them to shift by power braking the "F" outta them. afterwards somehow they work fine so i don't know what to say about how to fix them, it must require selling your soul to the devil, or some kind of voodoo black magic.

 

I must have had a fluke experience it seems. I have owned about 12 Ford trucks and 9 Ford cars over the years. From F150's to F350's, Aviators (which sucked IMHO) and Navigators, Windstars to Mustangs. I tow trailers, and boats.

To this day, the only tranny problem I have ever had was when I tried to mix a World Class T5, slicks, and nitrous. KAPOW!!! LMAO! Spread giblets half way down the track!

Course, I am religious about service, every 30,000 miles for non-towers, 15 for the towers. Flush and filter every time. Of course, the vehicles I tow with (right now an F150, F350, and Navigator) all have supplemental tranny coolers and a tranny temp gauge (except the Nav, couldn't find a good place to stick it).