Just FYI, in case something similar happens to you then you will have an idea what to expect.

I was travelling through Ohio on the way home from visiting relatives in Illinois when we noticed a bunch of smoke rolling out from behind the truck. We immediately pulled over and called a wrecker. To make a long story short, it took the local Ford dealership a few days to figure out exactly what happened (New Carlisle Ford in New Carlisle, OH - good people who treated me well).

Apparently, there is a snap ring in the top of the tranny that will break and allow a piston of some sort to ram into the inside of the case; which led to the crack which allowed the fluid to escape and spray onto the exhaust. At least I think this is what he said when I had him explain it to me. They had not opened the tranny, so a quick explanation while pointing at the crack and the bulge in the case had to suffice. It lost a lot of fluid, several pints. The temp was fine and it was driving fine. Anyway, they replaced the tranny (under warranty) with a remanufactured piece that they said had been rectified of the snap ring problem. The tranny tech told me that he had seem them with a silver dollar sized chunk of the frame blown away and that they often still drove fine, if you kept fluid in them. It is not a new thing and I was obviously not the first victim of it. It is a known problem.

Thankfully, we were towing the camper, so the wrecker dropped it off in a local state park where I stayed until the truck was fixed - ALMOST 2 WEEKS!! That was not the dealership's fault - it was the warranty people's. Ford also covered the rental car that allowed me to take my wife, kids and dog home to Maryland so they could get back to work/school.

FYI.

 

Oh yeah, truck has 56000 miles on it.

 

Yeah, actually, there is a TSB out for this.

 

Where do I find the TSB? I have looked through the ones here: https://www.ford-trucks.com/tsb/fulltext/index.php but did not see one that applied to the problem I had.

 

It might be more of a "program" (a nice word for recall) than a TSB.

Not sure.

 

There was a campaign, which is like a program. They sent letters to owners of trucks with the snow plow package. The reasoning (and I'm not defending it, just reporting it) was that those trucks will do far more reverse engagements and have a much larger chance of the snap ring coming out of it's groove and grenading the case. As many of us have seen that isn't the case.

The letter offered to fix the problem free before a certain date and below a certain mileage. I don't remember either the date or the mileage.

 

That makes sense. The tranny tech had said that he had seen it before on plow trucks. I have the snow plow prep, even though I have never mounted a plow to the truck.

I never received anything from Ford about it. At all. If I had known about it beforehand, I doubt I would have been stranded in Ohio for 12 days and spent all that money. The warranty covered the repairs, but I am still out several hundred dollars for other stuff like campground fees and food.

 

It was customer service satisfaction program 05B27,and was open through Sept 30,2006 regardless of mileage. As you and I both know-they should have recalled every single Torqshift equipped vehicle that had that defective snap ring in it-they're all going to break the case at some point unless that snap ring is changed.
JL

 

Recalls are only done for safety or emissions. Even though Ford should have fixed all of them, it would never be a recall. It could have been a customer satisfaction program for all vehicles.

 

It could be considered a safety issue......
Case pops a hole in it on the highway,and spills trans fluid all over the road causing a serious accident,possibly even a multi-car pileup. Now,of course this is worst-case scenario,but it is possible.....
Either way,it should have been fixed across the board.
JL

 

Dang, I was considering trdading this truck off on a PSD or a V10, but I dont want to go through this again.

 

Get an OASIS and see if it was fixed. And, it's only a small run of trannies, it's not the entire model year, or multiple years.

 

OK, I thought is might have been the whole production year.

I bought the truck as a model year hold-over in August of 2006. I am pretty sure that is why I did not get the letter in the mail. You would think that the dealership I bought it from would have had it fixed if there was a program though.

 

Covered vehicles were built from Job# 1 on Diesel and Gasoline trucks thru 1/14/06 on Gasoline models and thru 1/12/06 on Diesel models. It ONLY covered vehicles that were equipped with the snowplow prep package. Dealers were supposed to have pulled every unit from stock that was affected and repaired them before delivery to the customer,and were also supposed to have contacted owners that had been sold vehicles that were affected.
JL