How worried should I be?

[bstuckle]

I mentioned in another post that I was having the issue with the transmission "bump" when accelerating from a low speed. The dealership had ordered the parts and I brought the car (2011 Explorer XLT) into them yesterday morning.

The power failure in Waterloo meant that the job couldn't be finished until today. I got a call at about 4:30 this afternoon and was told that the repair was done but another, bigger problem had developed. I was told that the mechanic had taken the car out for a test drive and the car was fine for the first 10 minutes. After that it started to slip out of gear. After a few minutes of that, the transmission locked up. I'm now told that the transmission has to be pulled from the vehicle in order to determine what happened.

The car has 15.6K on it and I guess I'm somewhat concerned that with such low mileage the transmission would have such a catastrophic failure (it might be a strong way to describe it but I've never had a car do this at all let aline with such relatively low mileage). I asked if this meant a transmission repair or replacement and the shop rep couldn't tell me anything yet.

Should I be worried about the transmission being repaired instead of replaced? Has anyone been through anything similar and can provide some things to watch for or things to ask that I might not be aware of? Also, does anyone know exactly what the differences in the drive train are with the factory tow package installed? I'm not sure if internally there are differences or it's more related to cooling/supporting aspects.

And I'll say it again ... I freakin love the Explorer. This is the first North American car I've had in a long time and I'm very happy with it so far (even with the few things that have been fixed already). I'm hoping that the dealership/Ford does the right thing (what ever that turns out to be) because I would like to continue to enjoy the car.

Cheers

 

[peterk9]

I mentioned in another post that I was having the issue with the transmission "bump" when accelerating from a low speed. The dealership had ordered the parts and I brought the car (2011 Explorer XLT) into them yesterday morning.

The power failure in Waterloo meant that the job couldn't be finished until today. I got a call at about 4:30 this afternoon and was told that the repair was done but another, bigger problem had developed. I was told that the mechanic had taken the car out for a test drive and the car was fine for the first 10 minutes. After that it started to slip out of gear. After a few minutes of that, the transmission locked up. I'm now told that the transmission has to be pulled from the vehicle in order to determine what happened.

The car has 15.6K on it and I guess I'm somewhat concerned that with such low mileage the transmission would have such a catastrophic failure (it might be a strong way to describe it but I've never had a car do this at all let aline with such relatively low mileage). I asked if this meant a transmission repair or replacement and the shop rep couldn't tell me anything yet.

Should I be worried about the transmission being repaired instead of replaced? Has anyone been through anything similar and can provide some things to watch for or things to ask that I might not be aware of? Also, does anyone know exactly what the differences in the drive train are with the factory tow package installed? I'm not sure if internally there are differences or it's more related to cooling/supporting aspects.

Cheers

Another member had a transmission problem some time ago. Unforunately I can't recall exactly what it was. The dealer at first said they were going to repair it but the member wasn't happy with that. It ended up being replaced with a new transmission. You can try searching the forum and see if you find something on that.
I think I'd be tempted to ask for a new transmission since you don't know what else may be wrong with it.

Peter

 

[boominXplorer]

Most of the time with a catastrophic failure under warranty the whole transmission is swapped out. If its just a shift flare, torque converter / front seal or a small trans issue then it is repaired

 

[bstuckle]

Well, good news so far. The last time I spoke to the dealership they said that they would be pulling the transmission from the car. I called them this afternoon and they said that the mechanic had another look at it and found a valve stuck open. I'm assuming that there's some internal valve that the tech was able to see based on what had been removed in order to do the repair as per the TSB. They said that they corrected the valve situation, put everything back and there were no issues when they tested it.

I asked about any long term affects from what I understood had happened during the first test but I was told that the transmission hadn't completely locked up as the car was still able to move forward. I guess the transmission had kicked down to a lower gear or began operating in a degraded mode? I dunno, just have the info that they gave me.

As per the work order they replaced the separator plate, installed a main control, removed the check ball and reset the PCM. I drove the car home today and everything felt great.

I actually had a bit of a chuckle when I got into the Explorer and started to leave the dealership. For the last 2 days they had given me a 2011 Ford Focus as a loaner car. There was no power steering in it. When I pulled out of the parking spot and turned the wheel in my Explorer I felt like I was Superman because of how easy the wheel turned. hehe

Cheers

 

[EX-SV]

I actually had a bit of a chuckle when I got into the Explorer and started to leave the dealership. For the last 2 days they had given me a 2011 Ford Focus as a loaner car. There was no power steering in it. When I pulled out of the parking spot and turned the wheel in my Explorer I felt like I was Superman because of how easy the wheel turned. hehe

Cheers

2011 Ford Focus with manual steering? Really, or was it defective...