Looking for some food for thought:

Two weeks ago I was returning from an 800 mile trip in my 2001 Supercrew. When reversing into the driveway, the tranny made some horrendous clunking and grinding sounds and locked up. Forward gears had some rattling and loud whirring sounds and erratic shifting. I took it to the dealer, about a mile away, and left if for diagnosis. The dealer chose to repair the transmission by replacing the "planet assembly and sun gear". When I questiond why they did not replace the transmission, the dealer indicated that since it didn't "grenade" they chose the more economical repair rather than full replacement.

100 miles later down the road after the repair, I was reversing down the driveway and the exact same problem occurred. I limped it back to the dealership with the Service Engine Soon light and Overdrive OFF lights flashing and they immediatly ordered a replacement transmission. For some unknown reason, the ordered tranny did not arrive and they have indicated they have ordered a new one from the Memphis factory, rather than a reconditioned one which was what was originally being installed.

With this next repair, I would expect that this problem should be fixed unless there are other drivetrain issues that may have caused it in the first place.

My questions are these: 30-40% of my mileage is towing a 4500lb vintage trailer. Can one generally expect that a replacement 4R70W transmission will have the same "durability" after a dealer installation? Is there anything I should be careful with after this installation has been completed? Break-in period etc....

Is this something that is common to the 4R70W transmission, which I understand is a "performance" transmission and not a "truck grade" transmission? (Now knowing this, the next will be an F250 Super Duty for sure!)

Knowing that we are not all attorneys here, but I'll ask anyway. Would a transmission failure such as this be considered a safety defect? (California Lemon laws have different qualifying language for safety defects.)

Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions. I guess I'm looking for some reassurance that this vehicle, after repair, should be expected to have a long and productive towing life.

John in San Diego

 

I'd have to say that your not going to get out of the truck quite that easy. I'd say you'd be at a big loss to get them to say it was a safety issue. My buddy has an olds alero that the air bag fell off of the steering wheel into my lap while i was driving it, the rack went out on it and the mirror is on its sixth replacement due to the glass falling out and he can't seem to get his bought back. so good luck. i've got a 4r70w in my 95 truck with 125000 miles on it and it doesn't seem to have any problems.

 

We have a good tranny shop that has done all our work for 20 years.
The biggest thing with tranny repair is did they flush the cooler?
The new trannys have great filters but if anything gets past it will be in the lines and the cooler ready for a trip to your new trans. We always replace replace the cooler on a trans replacement or rebuilt.

Just my .03 cents, good luck

 

I can only speak for myself and my truck on this one, but if you are pulling a trailer that heavy, that often, I would have to say that you would be far better off to trade it for a Super Duty now, as opposed to later. My bass boat weighs in around 3000, and I can tell that if I were to be pulling it 30 to 40% of the time, my transmission would not last either. While towing my boat down to Table Rock Lake in Missouri last year, my truck took a beating trying to maintain the speed limit. A friend of mine has a very similar boat, and a Chevy 1500 Z71, and he was following me, or at least trying to, and he finally said that he wasn't going to burn up his truck trying to keep up with me. I was not driving crazy at all, just doing my best to stay near the 70 mph speed limit. He also got much worse fuel mileage than I did. My point with bringing the Chevy in the mix is not to bash Chevy, or the F150, but to illustrate that towing that type of weight is better suited for a Super Duty. Probably with the diesel.