Can someone please advise me as to the location of the tranny drain plug? I have a 02 escape. I am trying to change the fluid and have lost my mind.......Thanks.

 

I get to it by crawling under the driver's side door and wiggle my way forward. The plug is on the back side of the tranny. It is not a bolt but a 1/2" ratchet/torque wrench will fit. I believe it's on the right back side of the tranny.

 

Thanks. I saw it yesterday and was wondering if that was it as it looked like the only possible option. Thanks for the help.............

 

I gues I was having an off day. Just wanted to make sure that was it before dumping who knows what...Anyway thanks for the reply!!!!!!!!!!

 

Nothing like taking a bolt out of the tranny when you think it's a plug

 

No Kiddding!!! I got it changed this evening. Hopefully after the next series of dumps I will have it made. I have heard lots of bad reports on the cd4e. Mine seems to be fine. When I took out the bolt I had no metal shavings or particles, but the fluid was getting dingy looking. Replaced it with Dex III-Mercon. I hope it will go a few more 100,000. Thanks for your help.

 

I'll correct myself. I do a one gallon drain (what comes out when you just pull the plug) every other oil change and today was that day. $6 worth a Mercon and it keeps the fluid fresh. The plug takes a 3/8" drive and it's on the left side. It's almost hidden by a support until you get close. With the support being close, a short extension on the ratchet gives you enough room to remove.

Make sure you wipe the inside of the plug when you remove. It's magnetized so that fine grit from your tranny sticks to the plug. Worry if you find metal pieces. When you wipe the plug with a clean cloth, it should resemble something like graphite.

 

That was it exactly. I wiped the plug and it did resmeble graphite. Thanks for all of your help. Hopefully it will keep on running. What does ford reccommend? Every 30,000 miles? My next project is to change my wife's car. She has a 2005 Ford 500. I can't wait to figure it out.

 

One of my owner's manuals (I've owned 2 Escapes) didn't show anything until 150k miles. I believe somewhere on "myford" I saw 60k. Then dealerships have quoted 30k. I've got almost 50k miles on the current Escape and the tranny fluid looks nice and red. It also smells like cat spray - I just can't stand the smell of fresh tranny fluid.

I dump what comes out of the tranny every other oil change. Your tranny will hold around 2.5 gallons but only 3.9 quarts come out on a drain. Do the math and you'll see that this keeps the fluid about 90% fresh at all times. Or you can have someone power flush for $100+ every 30k miles are so but I prefer the following method:

#) old new %new
1) 6.10 3.90 39%
2) 3.72 6.28 63%
3) 2.27 7.73 77%
4) 1.38 8.62 86%
5) 0.84 9.16 92%
6) 0.52 9.48 95%
7) 0.31 9.69 97%
8) 0.19 9.81 98%
9) 0.12 9.88 99% (98.83)
T) 0.07 9.93 99% (99.29)

 

Your on the ball bananaboat,I can smell moderator in the future.Good job,keep up the good work, Al.

 

I agree with your numbers, however I have a question about the methodology, If you do this every other oil change (I assumed 3k each), by the time you get to step 5 where the fluid is 92% "new", the fluid you put in in step 1 would have 24k miles on it. Would it still be considered new?

If you were to do this all in one day, granted you would waste 20 qts of fluid, but you would end up with 92% new fluid in the tranny all at once. This would still be cheaper than one of those lube-joint flushes.

Not saying my way is better, just throwing it out there for discussion.

 

Good point. Depends on what you define as "new". Find the Ford maintenance schedule for normal duty on the Escape, not the schedule defined by the quick-e-lube or the guy pushing services at the dealership. Ford lists the tranny fluid replacement (not flush) at 150k miles and notice they also show oil changes at 5k miles.

At this point everything gets into personal opinions, pros/cons of different oil filters, dino versus synthetic, etc. We can all agree (hopefully) that earlier maintenance is better than overdue maintenance.

Step #5 gives you better than 90% tranny fluid replacment. The original refill of 3.9 quarts (40% new) isn't truly still left in the tranny. Since you are putting in 40% new on every drain/fill some of it is still there and at this point it's mixed with less than 10% "old". Also find the Ford procedure for the 150k service. It's not a power flush. It's a double fill and dump that allows for warming the tranny between the 1st and 2nd dump. So their service at 150k miles is only replacing 63% of the fluid! So step #5 still has you running with some original tranny fluid but is it considered "old" based on Fords service interval?

My 02 Escape waited until 60k miles for a tranny service and the fluid was nasty at that point. Not burnt but not looking good. That truck was totaled at 85k miles. I've been following the above dump/fill procedure on my 05 Escape. It now has over 50k miles it the tranny fluid has always looked fresh and bright red.

I'll add a disclaimer that I stole the more frequent dump/fill method from someone else. It's inexpensive and extra insurance for a CD4E tranny. You could do the dump/fill multiple times at once and still come out cheaper than a tranny service. The method is so simple that it's just a few more extra minutes when doing your own oil service.

 

And you could add an external bypass filter on the tranny cooler line, get the best of both worlds

 

I will second the 60,000 miles nasty fluid. Mine had 63,000 when I started the 3.9 Quart dump process. It looks better already. I am going to stick with the extra insurance on the CD4E based on everything I have read so far.

 

Bananaboat - how/where do you dispose of the old tranny fluid?