I have an 03 F350 with 95,000 miles. Its been a great truck until recently. Today I started out pulling my 5th wheel and every thing was fine. I got to an area with some hills and turned on tow/haul. A few seconds later it began to flash. I have pillar gauges and everything looked good. Trans temp was 170 and the shifts felt normal. I pulled over looked at my owners manual to see what the flashing indicated. I was in the middle of BFE and had 70 miles to the next town. So I restarted my truck to go to the next town and the light never flashed again. Trans shifted fine and temps remained normal. If I engaged tow/haul and slowed down enough for the trans to downshift I felt a shudder and the light would blink. Turn truck off then restart light would stay off until I tried to engage tow/haul. I did a search and found some info about a TFT sensor. Could it be that and how serious is the problem because this is my only vehicle and will have to travel to get to a dealer.
Several months ago I had to replace the TFT sensor because it became defected and was showing the trans oil as very hot. Typical flashing tow/haul light. Could be yours is on it's way out.
There are at least 50 different reasons why the tow/haul would flash. The ONLY way to know why is to have the codes read. You need to have a very specific tool to be able to read Ford transmission codes. Anywhere that will read codes free won't have this tool.
__________________ Mark
Former Ford automatic transmission engineer, 1988-2007.
What is the maintenance history? Was the tranny fluid changed (or flushed) every 30k? Was only Mercon SP fluid used? how about the change frequency on the external filter?
__________________ Mark
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All fluid was flushed and inline filter was changed at 70,000 when I got the truck. I just hit 95,000. Maint before that I have no Idea. Trucks been great up until the last 2 weeks. IPS sensor, ALT, and now the flashing tow/Haul light
Yes Mercon SP i was going back to edit that. Been looking at the tech folder and see the codes listed but have no Idea what to make of it. Is this something bad taht I will not be able to drive to my dealer 80 miles away
TorqShift Gear Trouble Codes:
When diagnosing a TorqShift transmission, trouble code P0700 may be stored. Diagnose using any additional stored codes. P0730 may be found stored with codes P2700-2704. Use the additional code(s) to determine which clutch or clutch control is causing the gear ratio P0730 code to be set. Broadcast Message 1158, 1525.
Do you think my ALT going south along with my batteries could have caused this. It did the typical thing where one by one things quit working until I was stranded on the side of the road. Batt light never came on to give me a warning. Alt was only 6 months old as were the batteries
Batteries going bad do make these OBD-II PCM's do weird things. You can try clearing codes and see what happens. If there is a problem, it won't take long for the codes to return. It's possible that there could be other problems. Earlier 6.0's had chafing problems on some of the harnesses that ran under the intake. If something were shorted to ground, it wouldn't take long to kill an alternator and batteries.
The light will never flash unless I engage Tow/Haul. Drove to the fire house for work and it preformed great. Shifts good and no light. One of the pluses to working 24 hours is that you have free time for the Internet and working on vehicles. My big concern is the 80 mile drive to the dealer
If it only flashes with the tow/haul on, don't turn on the tow/haul going to the dealer.
Low voltage won't hurt any of the sensors. They are working right, as shown by the codes. It's showing that one of the clutches (I forget which one is A - we didn't use those designations in Engineering) isn't applying correctly. That's usually a mechanical problem, though it could be a sticky solenoid.
__________________ Mark
Former Ford automatic transmission engineer, 1988-2007.
Thanks for the info guys. The trucks at the shop but I have one more question. I call the shop and they inform me they are out road testing the truck. 30 minutes latter I get a call that says I need a new trans. 1st 2nd and 3rd gear clutches are bad including the solenoid. My question is how are you able to make this DX without dropping the pan. The trans Temps have always been normal and have had no indication of slipping. Can you tell all this from codes or do I need a second opinion
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