My son in law texted by me last night with a question. His 2019 F150 is showing climbing temps on the tranny gauge with no load. He is a fence co tractor and pulls a trailer daily. He’s worried that the temps are creeping up. Is there a troubleshooting chart somewhere? It appears from a quick search that this is fairly common with the10R80. Does it have some sort of thermostatic switch or valve that is a high failure item?
What’s the temp gauge showing? How much of a change from before? Maybe also, where’s the sender, in the pan, cooler line, in or out?
I’ll find out. I’m not really sure. I was just wondering if we could add an external cooler with a fan.
The 10R80 is a good transmission, but factory computer settings are not optimal. You can have a custom transmission tune written to the transmission computer that changes a bunch of settings, pressures, etc. A lot of the heat is due to the constant hunting between gears and converter locking and unlocking, these 10R80's are known for this. These transmission tunes will help eliminate that, which would also lower temps. The other issue is the "cooler" is nothing more than a heat exchanger using engine oil to warm up the transmission fluid and it really isn't very efficient. I'm sure there are upgrades out there, but not sure of the details. These transmissions have a thermostat for the cooler, so there may be issues with that. When I was in the market for a "new" used truck this time last year. I wanted the newest 4x4 F150 I could get while staying under $30k. After a bunch of research, the 2018+ with the 10R80 was not for me, due to it's problematic nature, so I chose a low mileage 2017 with the near bulletproof 6R80. A coworker bought a new 2018 F-150 with the 10R80, and had a total transmission failure at 30k miles, fortunately for him it was under warranty, but now that he's nearing 60k miles, he's fearing it may happen again. Look at the transmission cooler from Full-Race.com
@TexasHardcore those are all true statements. I never understood why they want the transmissions to run so hot. I usually run a separate trans cooler and eliminate the one in the radiator on older vehicles. It keeps the trans nice and cool. 200 plus degree coolant temp can't be good for transmission life
Heat will Kill a transmission, Optimal temp should be 160-180 empty or loaded , @ least on older ones , , Some things are designed just to get to 100k , then sell new ones .
Glad I ordered my 2019 GT/CS with a manual 6-speed trans... I don't think I could deal with the 10 speed auto breaking down on me.. Besides.. I like stirring the gears manually.....
Ford will tell you that the transmission doesn’t need to be serviced until 100k but that is BS, we dropped the pans and changed the filter and fluid around 50k for F250 and 350s because they always had a trailer behind them.
So, I called my transmission guy and he said it is plagued with issues. He said we should feel lucky that some guys have the tranny try and go into park at 75 mph. The clutch drum is the problematic part that he keeps on the shelf. He said Ford corrected the issue or most of it in 2021. It's a $6900 transmission. Ford is getting $9950.
My self I would add , plum in a way to keep temp in pan close to Valve body & @ outlet and maybe a Thermal temp on converter & keep close to 180, I would imagine temps between case & trains tunnel would be 220-250 around top of case ..( Oem set up ) ,I do feel heat over 190 kills transmission Older & Newer , I would stick with 160-180 temp, Driver putting Trains in Park @ 70 or Trains does it on its own , maybe Trains ecu ?
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