I have a 1997 F-250, crewcab short bed, with just over 65000 miles.
The transmission went out in early 2000 at about 25,000 miles, ane while it was under warranty, the tech at Butterfield Ford in Sandy, Utah, said that the trans was not truly designed to handle the torque of the P-Stroke. I contacted Ford and was assured that the trany was more than adequate to handle the rated towing capacity for the vehicle of approx. 13,000 lbs.

From the date of the rebuild in early 2000, until the Spring of 2001 this truck was not used for towing. In April we used the truck to pull a 3 horse trailer (goose neck) from Salt Lake City to Denver and back. The trailer fully loaded weighed about 7,500 lbs. I religiously kept the over-drive dissengaged and we made the trip at an average speed of less than 50 mph. Nonetheless, about 50 miles out of Salt Lake on our return trip, the over-drive light began flashing and the trans began shifting very hard. I called Butterfield Ford and was advised to drive it on in it would be safe. The trans went out completely by the time we got home.

I had it towed to Butterfield and spent $3k to have them rebuild it again. In May we took the horses to Tacoma and on the way, after crossing into Oregon, the light began blinking again and the shifting problem returned.

Over I was fed up with Ford so I took the vehicle to an independent shop that supposedly specialized in Ford Diesels. They rebuilt the Trans 4 times in a period of 3 weeks. NOTE, during this period I only used the truck once for towing because I did not trust it. In June I purchased a 2001 F-350 crewcab, P-Stroke with a 6-speed and decided that I would use the F-250 for non-towing travel. As luck woud have it, the clutch fork and related assembly failed on the F-350 the very first time we used it to tow the horse trailer.

Short of digging a hole and burying these vehicles Does ANYONE HAVE A SOLUTION FOR THE AUTOMATIC TRANS???

 

Does the Lemon Law apply here? I would ditch the rebuilt trans altogether and make them put in a brand new never been used tranny. An aftermarket chip that increases line pressure to the tranny would not hurt either. It will firm up the shifts and extend tranny life by reducing the amount of slippage the tranny sees while shifting. I have the Banks Transcommand Module installed on mine and love it. It hase not affected towing at all and the truck shifts much better and I have 95K on the truck. Installing a tranny temp guage to moniter the tranny temp would also be a good idea, you can put it in a pillar mounted guage pod with your EGT guage as well.