I am the 2nd owner of a 11 F-350 6.7 4X4 that has 86,XXX miles on it that is a late 10 build. The only modification has been tuning with canned tow tune on a SCT 7015 X4. I do tow a 35' fifth wheel camper with and that puts me almost at my weight limit when fully loaded but it but it is not a work truck.

In the past the transmission would sometimes want to hesitate going between 3 and 4 when the truck was cold but all of a sudden it has become much more pronounced and doesn't go away as quickly. This is happening when the truck is empty. This has me kinda concerned going into camping season here with a potentially iffy transmission. I know that there were some TSBs on this but I am out of warranty here so I would like to know what I should be looking at and or doing going forward? I have an appointment at a dealer I trust on Friday to have it looked at but I would like all the info I can heading into that.

Is this just "normal" for these transmissions and therefore I can just drive it like normal without concern?

If not then what is the consensus best approach for repair?

Thanks,
Craig

 

I pulled this from the powerstroke site:


Originally Posted by BigMikey_ab View Post
I've had that happen to me twice in 5000kms. Both times it was on a cold start, maybe 5 minutes idling, above freezing, and just driving normally, not a hard accel by any means. The first time was with less than 500kms... first Ford, was kind of shocked/worried/scared. Thankfully still lots of warranty!
Let her buck!
Yea all the things were about the same when it happened to me, just around freezing temps, short time of idle before driving, and it happened just as i was leaving the house, definitely not a hard takeoff or acceleration. I did have my local Ford Dealership take a look and try diagnose the problem. They came back with not being able to reproduce the problem but had said they have experienced others doing the same thing and said it was due to the last download to the PCM which increased the stock horsepower and torque, guess will see if it continues or what (good thing for warranty). They did say that the one that they were able to identify the problem, they replaced the PCM with one that had the download already built in and it fixed it.

 

Thanks Mike....
I have done searches and there seems to be a million opinions / possible answers out there. I am hoping that someone on here will have some good first hand experience with this to be able to give me some advice. I also know that Ford will monitor the forum and I would be curios to hear what they thought.

 

I've got a similar problem with my 2011 F-450. Bucking shifts in 1,2 and 3 when it is cold. Warms up after about 2 -3 miles and all is good.
I took it to a dealer and left it for 5 days. At first, they said they couldn't reproduce the problem. I told them to keep it a couple more days. Final answer: Normal operation. They produces a TSB that says rough shifts may be normal during cold operation until the tranny warms up.

FWIW, it seems like the first time I noticed the problem was after the last recall for the exhaust system sensors that required re-programming the computers.

 

Thanks. Mine also goes away once it gets up to temp. The last couple days going from 3 to 4 was terrible until the tranny got over 90 degrees. But when I started it up this morning the temp was right at 30 and it did hesitate a little going from 3 to 4 for the couple blocks until I got out of my neighborhood but then it was fine once I hit the highway even with the temp still under 50.

I have read that people say it is just 'normal' for these transmissions but boy does it make me nervous. While I am by no means an expert the more I read the more I am convinced that it is a combination of the solenoid operation and the programming of the transmission.

 

Do you have the optional manual shifting automatic transmission? If so, next time you do a cold start, manually shift it and see if you get the same issues.

 

I did the manual shift this evening and it behaves the same way until it gets warm.