Hey all, I drive a 2012 5L V8 F-150. She only has 85k miles on her but a majority of that milage (50k) was driven in the past two years. I was driving down the road, with no issues and all of a sudden I noticed a smokey haze coming out the rear end of the truck, looked at my engine temp gauge and noticed it was warming up past its normal temp. Shortly after that I noticed the transmission was shifting all over the place and then the yellow wrench light came on. I checked under the truck and noticed a lot of fluid on the ground (not necessarily leaking out) just fluid all over the ground about where the engine is possibly the transmission location.

After the truck cooled down I tried to turn it back on and then shift in to drive in hopes I could just get off the highway somewhere a little safer to diagnose more but when I pressed the gas peddle it would no go anywhere. It budged forward a little as if i just got bumped in the rear but that was it. I turned it off again after that and waited for my tow truck. May be worth noting that I never let the temp gauge get in to the yellow or red section of the bar, I was able to pull over and shut her down prior to that.

I was curious if anyone other owners ran in to this issue. I'm running under the current assumption something went wrong with the transmission due to the sudden massive fluid leak and that ended up over heating the transmission as well. But I'm much more confident with working on motorcycles than trucks so I am unsure. Any advice?

Fluid had seemed slighly oil like but more brownish than red which is what I would expect transmission fluid to look like. I added a quick video. I believe the leak is only in the front, there is a puddle in the back but keep in mind I was rolling to a stop so.

 

More than likely it's the issue of the transmission cooler line connectors failing..

 

I did this proactively, noticed some sweating at the crimps. There are random instances of trans line failure. I talked to a local dealer and he said the line can be solid one day and seperate the next . Usually the trans is trashed. There is no improvement made to the part, below will last the life of the truck.


Crimp was sweating

After cutting crimp

Old Lines

Clamped line. Line is barbed. Hose pushed over ridge.