TrumanB

As far as the transmission fluid. I most certainly think it should be flushed prior to 150K. Check the fluid before you have it flushed though. The fluid should be nice and pink. If it's brown or black it should be flushed. No need to flush a fluid that is in good condition already. If the transmission seems to be slipping or shifting improperly, you'll probably want to see somebody before you have it flushed.

Hope that gives you some insight. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you all.

Thanks. I'll check the color of the fluid.

SpringfieldSkins,

I have a 2003 Ford Escape that I bought with 70,000 miles on it. It currently has 80,000 miles on it. There were no service records that came with the car, so I have no idea what kind of scheduled maintenance was done on the car prior.

Anyway, I've changed the oil and oil filter at the recommended 5,000 mile intervals. Ford's maintenance schedule recommends that the automatic transmision fluid be changed (flushed?) at 150,000 miles. This seems like a lot of miles before this is done. Now, the maintenance schedule that I have is for "normal" driving conditions. Not sure what the definition of that is or what kind of condition the previous owners (two of them) drove in.

My question: should I have a transmission flush done before the recommened 150,000 miles? Am I just wasting my money by doing it now?

Thanks.

Just wanted to provide an update to my Redskins brethren, just in case they run into the same issue that I ran into.

I took my car (Ford Escape) to a local transmission shop that has been in business for years. They found that it was NOT a transmission problem, but a catalytic converter problem. This particular vehicle has 3 catalytic converters (WTF?) and one of the front converters had literally disintegrated and pieces of it lodged into the rear converter. The exhaust system was literally clogged up and the behavior exihibited was one of a transmission problem where the car was sluggish and appeared not to be able to smoothly shift into gear. To replace 2 of the 3 converters was going to cost over $2,000 parts and labor. Ouch.

But, here's the kicker: there is a federallymandated manufacturer's emissions warranty for catalytic converters (and other emissions related parts) for up to 8 years or 80,000 miles, whichever comes first. This has nothing to do with your bumper-to-bumper or drivetrain warranty. This is a warranty that covers everyone for vehicles manufactured after 1995.

My vehicle had 75,000 miles on it, which means I was covered. :jump: The local Ford dealership had to replace both bad converters free of charge. And they even covered 2 days for my car rental, which they didn't have to legally do under this warranty. So, kudos to them for that. And the way the transmission shop and the dealership explained it to me, there are SEVERE penalites (hefty fines, prison, etc.) imposed by the government if any auto shop does not disclose this warranty to a customer. The service manager at the dealership told me that they make these kinds of repairs "under duress". :rotflmao:

Side note: some of you probably know that I'm kind of a right-wing nutjob that wants to gut the Federal government. So, you must be thinking I'm a hypocrite to take "advantage" of this Federal law. Well, the way I see it, if the Federal government mandates that auto manufacturers install these emissions-related parts in their cars to abide by emission standards (which the cost of course gets passed on to consumers), then they damn well better protect the consumer from manufacturers skimping on material and installing cheap parts. I believe that's why this warranty law was passed to begin with. Anyway, that's my justification and I'm sticking to it.

I'm sure it's not what you wanted to hear, sorry about that. My job involves me telling a lot of people what they don't want to hear, sometimes to the point of them in tears (it makes me sad every time). It sucks that you didn't get to speak to the service writer when you dropped off your car. I always try to have some sort of communication with people. That kind of thing leads to people thinking that the shop is "too busy for you".

As far as your questions...

The diagnostic fee: Dealerships are always more expensive than private shops. I don't know what the shop's hourly rate is, but by the sound of it, I would imagine something like $100 per hour.

As far as the range of price for a diagnostic, I often do that myself. Sometimes you don't know how far the technician will have to go to diagnose a problem. A performance diagnostic would be a perfect example. Sometimes the technician will open up the hood and find something very obvious such as a disconnected or rotted vacuum line. Sometimes a technician will have to follow the diagnostic tree all the way to the bottom. For that reason, I tell the customer that there could be a range as far a price for the diagnostic. I would plan for that $200 diagnostic, but hope for the $150 one.

Will they take the diagnostic fee off of the final bill? I can't answer that question. Some shops do, some shops don't. My shop doesn't, I feel that it is just that they don't take diagnostic fees off of the final bill. The technicians at my shop work hard and diagnostic work is part of their repairs. If we charge 1/2 hour, the technician will spend a 1/2 hour to properly diagnose the car and insure what he thinks is wrong with the car is actually wrong with the car. To put it another way... Why would he want to diagnose a car (if he wasn't getting paid for it) when he could be making money fixing other cars?

Your second question: This one will be much easier. I can't really point you in the right direction of any good shops. I have lived in northern Virginia for all of my life. Good technicians and shops are much more of a local thing. I will add that I wouldn't naturally trust a national chain, especially one that focuses on transmissions (or exhaust, or brakes, or tires for that matter). The reason is because they don't rely on repeat business. If a transmission shop wants to stick it to you, they most certainly can, they don't have to rely on you coming back for other repairs or services ever again. I'd stick to dealers or private shops with a reputation if I were you.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions, as well as others on this board. It's nice to know that we can count on our Redskins brethren for things like this.

By the way, great advice on the national chains. I never really thought of it that way before. I actually found a local shop just down the road this afternoon where I will be taking the car to have it looked at on Tuesday. They charge a $89 diagnostic fee that is waived if they actually perform the recommended repair work. I never dropped the car off at the dealership, just played telephone tag with the service advisor.

This could be either in the transmission or the computer control (of the transmission). Being that you can "slam" it into overdrive, I would suspect it is in the transmission itself. Could be transmission pump pressure related (which is inside the transmission) where as if you give it a bunch of gas it will force enough pressure to kick it into overdrive.

It could possibly be the PCM not telling the transmission to shift into overdrive also. I doubt that, but it is possible that their may be a reprogram available to the vehicle's PCM.

I haven't seen this problem yet on the Escape. So I don't have much history to go on as far as what the most common problem is. It wouldn't surprise me if the transmission was beginning to fail (or at least the shift into overdrive, pump pressure, etc.). Good luck.

Thanks for your input. Obviously, a transmission failure is not what I wanted to hear.

I called the local Ford dealership this morning to schedule an appointment to have it looked at, but the "red" team leader was tied up with another customer. He called me back and left me a voicemail and said that it would cost between $150-200 just to diagnose the problem. I'm not sure why he gave me a range instead of a specific amount. I haven't called him back yet, but I do have a few more questions before I do:

1. That diagnostic fee seems a bit excessive. I had work done a couple of months ago on the car and they charged an $89 diagnostic fee. Anyway, if they fix the problem, will they still charge me the diagnostic fee? I don't recall if they did so last time and I can't find the receipt.
   
2. The dealership told me that they only had one transmission tech on staff, which surprised me. Do you know of any tranmssion shops in the Richmond area that you would recommend other than the dealership? Or are any of the national chains ones that you would recommend?
   

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Truman- check your fuse boxes.

One very important thing that I forgot to mention is that it sometimes will eventually switch into overdrive. It is very random and does not happen all the time.

Could it still be fuse related?

This is an awesome thread SpringfieldSkins. I didn't know this existed until yesterday.

I have a problem that I hope you or someone else can shed some light on. I bought my daughter a 2003 Ford Escape about 4 months ago. The Escape is basically a smaller version of the Ford Explorer. It has 74,000 miles on it and has been running fine until a few weeks ago. The car will not kick into overdrive when it reaches the proper speed, which is about 50 mph. It's almost like I have overdrive turned off, which I do not. There is a button on the gear shifter to turn overdrive off and I have not pressed that button. When I do press the button to test it out, there is a light on the dash that says "OD Off". But, I immediately reset it back on before driving.

Edited for clarification: one very important thing that I forgot to mention is that it sometimes will eventually switch into overdrive. It is random and does not happen all the time. The engine revs to about 4000 rpm and sometimes if I press the accelerator several times, it will kick into overdrive.

Does this sound like a transmission problem? Or is there a separate unit apart from the transmission that controls the overdrive function? Could it be that the car thinks that overdrive has been turned off? Is there some type of control switch that regulates this?

By the way, I have checked the transmission fluid and it is at the right level and appears to be clean.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.