Well, my first major problem. 123,000 miles on '03 6.0L/Auto, 4x4. Tow/Haul light is flashing, trans starts in 2nd or 3rd gear, shifts to 4th. Nothing else! DTC are P0730, and secondary is 2702. Trans shop (AAMCO) says leaking seal in a gear/clutch pack. Worst case scenario is $1900.00. WOW!! It was running great. No towing since October and that was a 27' TT. I hope they can find a seal or o-ring or something simple. If they do, should I go ahead and do a complete rebuild? Thoughts?

 

gtodalep,

I have a '03 with the 6.0 and rarely pulled. AT about 102,000 my tranny went out. I caught it just before where you did. It started to slip and a few times it would slam into gear, almost like getting rear ended. The T/H light was flashing along with that. SO I took it to my preferred dealer and they diagnosed it as burnt. Well, maybe they used a more technical term but that was the jist of it. They said that they could try to rebuild it but there was no garuntee that it would not cost less to rebuild than to put in a reman. I trust this shop is not lying to me or feeding me bs. They also said that they could rebuild it but the only warranty on the rebuilt tranny would be on the parts that they actually replaced.

Now, if I did a reman from Ford, it would cost just over $4000 but would have a 75k warranty. I planned on keeping the truck for awhile so the reman was what I did. They did go easy on me and only charged $3800.

When I picked it up, I wanted to talk to the guy that knows trannys there. He said that he didn't see too many 03s that went past 100k. He said, of course, most guys have chips and stuff on the trucks but that after like 04 or 05 the trannys got much better. I wanted to see if there was something that I could have done differently or if there was something that I did to to cause it. He said not really. The 03 -04 trannys just didn't hold up too well, as a rule.

One thing that i have stopped doing is coasting in neutral. When I would coast to a stop from pretty much any speed above 40, I would slip it into neutral. I don't know if this did anything to help the tranny fail, but hey, it is an automatic. I don't need to mess with that stick once I put it in drive, right? I did it for a slight increase in fuel economy, fwiw.

Big

 

BIG, $3800 will buy ALOT of fuel. Hope this one works out for ya.

 

So far 205,000 km on the OD. Tow all the time. And hard. I think the trannys like to be worked cause no signs of any problems!

 

Yup. That thought is seared across my mind now!

Tech said it is not likely that coasting in neutral caused my problem. But he recommended against it. It has a coast clutch for that.

 

It ended up being the drum. The bushings were worn out. 123,000 miles. Cost just over $2000.00 Whew!! They had to buy the drum from Ford, which upped the cost. This is a complete rebuild with all new soft parts, drum, and a reman torque converter. Comes with a 12 month, 12,000 mile warranty. I can upgrade to 36 month, 50,000 mile for $200.00 more. I plan to drive it like I stole it and see what happens.

 

Picked up my truck last night. Drove 15 miles, SAME PROBLEM!!!!!!!! Took it back. They will have it flashed at dealer. (That fixes everything). Called me this morning. May be a solenoid causing the problem. I am thinking I paid $2070.00 for a rebuild I did not need. They are installing now and will take to Dealer for REFLASH. They insist that the Reflash will correct the problem after they replace the Solenoid. I am not a happy camper. We go camping in 3 weeks, 400 miles each way. I am anxious to say the least.

 

Thats gotta **** you off. Don't they test drive them BEFORE they release them to the customer ?

And if its a flash (yeah right) why did they have to rebuild it ?

 

Sounds like they were guessing when they replaced the drum. I would want to see the stuff they pulled out to compare.

 

Got the "bad" parts. Now, I am not a transmission guy, but I am a gearhead. I have been building cars since I was 5 with my dad(I am 48). I have seen bad bearing, etc. The bushing/bearing surface is copper in color, but is very smooth and consistant in color, no discoloration, no scratches etc. The plates are also in good shape with no bluing as if the have been hot, and too are smooth. I also have the clutch discs. Again, no evidence of failure, to me. I talke to the guy today. They replaced a shift solenoid. It is working, for now. I asked him to drive it all weekend as his personal truck, and drive it like he stole it. He laughed, until he realized I was serious. We will see what happens on Monday. I hope he does not try to charge me for the solenoid and labor to install it.

 

So let me get this straight... you didn't need a rebuild? Only a solenoid and a reflash? What solenoid and what reflash?

One of the reasons I bought this truck (03 6L) was because of the "bulletproof" tranny.... I am still driving my 97 PSD w/160K+ and original tranny. Am I to assume 100K is about all I can expect????

 

contact your local Bureau of Automotive repair and complain,maybe you'll get atleast a partial refund, for an uneeded overhaul, atleast for the parts that were not needed.

 

That's the problem with alot of these tranny shop's, they are full of crap and will rip you off the first chance they get. Not to say that some dealers wont try as well. They know for sure when you have a tranny issue, they got you by the you know what's. I had a Ford dealer one time tell me a tranny in a work vehicle was toasted at 50k and needed to be replaced for $2900. I said Oh Ok, hold the repair and I would get back to them. Called Ford Fleet and explained that this was B.S. at 50K. They said they would call the dealer and if it was toasted they would cover the repair with us having a $500 deductible. A miracle happened and it turned out that it was just a cracked accumulator spring. That tranny is still going strong at 125K.

 

Well, got my truck back again Monday night. They installed a $28.00 solenoid that fixed the problem. It cost me $2070.00 for a $28.00 solenoid!!!! I really have no recourse, as they did the work and rebuilt the trans, installed reman torque converter, new Mercon SP from dealer, oh and $15.00 in diesel for their test drives. At least this is only half of what the dealer wanted for the same service. I am very unhappy that these folks cannot diagnose problems on these electronic beasts. Maybe now the trans will last through the life of the motor.

 

i just hope they built your trans better than they diagnosed it.i looked at the codes you listed and in the pinpoint test for the codes,and the 2 you gave go hand in hand,the repair step was to only replace the affected solinoid which was the intermidiate solinoid.then road test to verify the repair.