Hey, guys! New to the forum, and I just bought my second pick up truck, a 2004 F250 with a 5.4 triton and the four-speed automatic transmission. It’s a really cool truck, but I bought it with 267,000 miles on it, knowing it’s been babied and regular maintained. I’ve had it for about a few days, and had no issue with it because I was driving really slowly, now I’ve gotten more confident with it and I’m driving a lot more than I used to, and just yesterday and today I noticed it was having some acceleration problems, I decided to listen to the truck while I was driving, not music or anything, and I noticed that it only shifts gears well when I’m accelerating incredibly slowly, like mopeds slow. When you accelerate a little bit harder, like merging onto the highway, the truck will do fine, shifting into second, but into third and four, people rev super high, like 3000 RPMs and will stay there, and it sounds like the transmission is attempting to shift gears, but it’s missing. Just today, since I’ve had it, when you’re accelerating onto the highway or merging with traffic, and you have to accelerate pretty quickly, I’ve had to lift off the accelerator to get the transmission to sort of “catch up”. When it does shift gears, it bangs into gear and the truck will idle down like it’s up shifted, but three or four seconds after the truck sounds like it’s shifting, you can actually feel the transmission kicking into gear. Thoughts? Advice? I’m concerned that it means the transmission is on its way out, it needs to be rebuilt. Or a new tranny. Hope not. I wouldn’t be surprised, it’s super high mileage, but I’m hoping it’s a small fix. Maybe a sensor. Ideas? Suggestions are welcome.

 

3000 rpms is NOT super high. these triton motors like to rev. youll hit 4500 passing semis uphill and itll take it all day long. now your trans issues, that i cant speak of, unless its just the fact that youre use to how a small car shifts, compared to these big trucks

 

What about it holding at three or 3500 RPMs? Or sounding like it’s trying to shift but not? Is the banging into gear normal?

 

What codes are stored in the PCM?

Don't go to an auto parts store to read them. They cannot read Ford transmission codes. You can go to a good independent shop or a Ford dealer to read them. If you don't want to spend a bunch of money to read them download Forscan free at www.forscan.org. Their page shows how to select an OBDII adapter to plug into the truck. I bought mine from Amazon for about $30.

 

No idea what it’s running. Tranny is cold too.

well below middle gauge