Trans issues - Not Festiva

[sketchman]

My mom's 06 Escape. 3.0 4WD auto. Trans has started shifting hard seemingly randomly. Does it shifting up and down. Also there is loud clunking noise when shifting into gear while sitting still. I had it on a lift and rotated a wheel by hand ever so slightly back and forth, and I was able to make the noise it's making just with a bit of wiggle. Diff bearings maybe?

I've put in a bottle of Lucas trans fix wonder juice expecting to fix nothing, and that seems to be about what it did. Nothing. Still shifts hard.

I've Googled and found lots of trans issues with the Escapes. One said they are on the 3rd trans so far. Not comforting.

It's pretty sad if it's a total failure, because this thing has led a very easy life for an SUV. Probably towed 3 or 4 times and never overloaded it. Mostly just DD duty and never offroaded it once.

Just curious if anybody has experience before I drop the turd and see what's up.

[Meepersly]

How was it towed?

[sketchman]

It wasn't. I meant I towed with it.

[Meepersly]

Strange never had any issues with my mother's escape v6 auto 4wd

[sketchman]

Reman unit is ~$1400 delivered with a new TC. Tempting.

[Meepersly]

Seems like a nice idea unless you can pull one at a lot for less

[sketchman]

I checked car-part.com. Problem is the lowest mileage per cost is still ~$800 and then going to get it etc. Rebuild kit seems to be about $400, but then you don't get a new converter with that.

[Meepersly]

Rebuild sounds best. Did you try a stall test?

[sketchman]

Not familiar with a stall test. I'll google it.

[Meepersly]

Basically like doing a brake stand burnout should be a low rpm around 1000. If its too high your torque converter is bad if it stalls or goes really low the clutch device in your torque converter is either stuck engaged or engages too soon. Did this test on my grand Prix due to it feeling low on power and it would bog out when accelerating but it was head gaskets.

[Meepersly]

I had a neighbor who was a mechanic for gm so he defiantly had many issues to deal with. Sorry for all those gm fan out there that's just my view.

[bhearts]

My mom's 06 Escape. 3.0 4WD auto. Trans has started shifting hard seemingly randomly. Does it shifting up and down. Also there is loud clunking noise when shifting into gear while sitting still. I had it on a lift and rotated a wheel by hand ever so slightly back and forth, and I was able to make the noise it's making just with a bit of wiggle. Diff bearings maybe?

I've put in a bottle of Lucas trans fix wonder juice expecting to fix nothing, and that seems to be about what it did. Nothing. Still shifts hard.

I've Googled and found lots of trans issues with the Escapes. One said they are on the 3rd trans so far. Not comforting.

It's pretty sad if it's a total failure, because this thing has led a very easy life for an SUV. Probably towed 3 or 4 times and never overloaded it. Mostly just DD duty and never offroaded it once.

Just curious if anybody has experience before I drop the turd and see what's up.

I still think that's what people get for buying new cars. There's alot of trash getting made these days. But everyone wants comfort and luxury, looks like you'll have to take out a second mortgage to cover those needs.

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[bhearts]

I've never even owned a car made in the 2000s, none of them seem reliable or easy to work on.

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[Meepersly]

I really like these simpler engines. They are so easy to work on and fixing issues cost so little. I do like some of the newer stuff like coils and crankshaft position sensors. Course these go bad too, but according g Tue the engineers they are more responsive than distributors.

[Movin]

The Arena would be a more appropriate place to discuss ford front or AWD transmissions. Actually the transmissions are one thing it is the engineers that designed 100 ways to destroy a good transmission in a vehicle much to powerful and heavy for it.

That said the filter is ....only replaced when the unit id overhauled. To make it last you remove its ability to filter and make it a reasonable obstruction to large objects. Your only reasonable line of defence is to drop the oil with every engine oil change and do a power flush every 4th or 5th engine oil change.

Ford was aware that we would figure this out so they designed another great idea. They made the air conditioning condensor and the transmission cooler all one part in front of the radiator. Then they forgot to put in proper cooler mounts. Now when either system fails you buy the super expensive cooler. The best fix is to get the best add on cooler you can and put it in front of the original AC condenser combo unit. Now when you are stuck in traffic or idling around parking lots the super high temp 134 fluid in the AC will not burn up your transmission. Bleeping idiots, can you believe they did that?

Not done yet, the morons had Mercon V available to take some heat but they spec. the Mercon non synthetic just to make sure it smoked. Get a non Mercon V oil, but that is synthetic. Valvoline max life mercon, what ever.

You have a transmission carefully cared for according to fords guidelines so you have problems. You may have debris plugging the original cooler causing high line pressure at times. You could have some worn bores in the valve body causing pressure control spools to stick. 134 running hot in the AC system can cook the tranny oil hot enough to cause solenoid malfunction and failure.

The vehicle is a little big for something designed for a high gas mileage car. The band wears and breaks. The valve body wears where the check balls are. The bushings like oil that is not boiling . Clutch material is even more picky.

If you put wonder juice in dark oil it probably just helped plug up the cooler more. If the oil has never turned dark look at the pressure regulator valve and control solenoids.

Don't think that newer is better, I just rebuilt a 6 speed AWD in a 2010 Escape. They designed a floating center support and the feed hydraulic pressure to the to clutch sets it contains...idiots..I guess your short lived drums and bands were lasting too long.