automatic transmission failure question

The first fluids for it didn't work well, and also

Yep, I think Fords do this by retarding the timing during shift, not
actually controlling the throttle, but still cutting back engine
power. You can actually hear this happen. And I have learned to
drive my Toyota that way too, letting up on the gas a bit to force the
shift to occur during lower power..

There has to be some period of slippage during every shift and the
friction parts wil llast longer if that happens with less power
flowing through..

Mark

 

Baloney on Ford trans.  The Taurus were notorious for that plastic

AXOD Forward piston, and it wasn't plastic, it was aluminum. It had a
nasty tendency to crack. Ford's engineers revised the design several
times before it was replaced with a steel part.


Chris

 

indeed. and it wasn't just simple fix stuff, it was fatality stuff like
ford and their exploder rolling and killing people just because it had a
flat tire. executives should be in jail, and that company should be
fined billions in punantives for that kind of deliberate calculated
slaughter.

 

Simple rule. Change fluid and filter every 24K. They last just fine. UNLESS
you are hauling a 65 foot boat. Had a friend who constantly bitched about
his Caravan. I asked him what he expected when he was hauling a boat and
trailer several times the car's rated towing capacity? I asked him if he
added an extra Trans cooler. He asked, WHY?

Reminds me of a story. One of the guys on our stunt driving team had worked
as service manager for a Cadillac dealer, and every year this old fart would
trade in his cars, and after the first one he'd tell the sales manager to
give him low bucks. The guy was angry and asked why. The sales manager told
him that the reason was that he put on lots of miles and never checked or
changed the oil. The old man came back; "What? You have to change the oil on
these? If they are built that poorly I don't want to own one again." He
started doing it to Lincolns. The engines were SHOT. He'd put on 75K to
100K a year. Run them almost dry on oil. Ignore the oil light. Traded it
when the oil light wouldn't go off any more. PEOPLE and cars.

 

The CEO of Ford - KNEW - of the defect. It got there because of HIM
ordering cutting corners. The engineers were frantic. But he had an MBA. It
was calculated the the costs of lawsuits would be less than the cost to
eliminate the problem. Only trouble is that the plaintiff's in one case got
ahold of the proof that it WAS calculated by Ford and the jury PUNISHED Ford
big time to make sure they got the message that it was NOT cheaper to screw
over people. And Firestone was complicit in it. Those were BAD tires. Damn
near dragged Bridgestone under.

Like I said, I'd LOVE to see MBA's on death row. Look at our economy.
Look at the ruins of so many companies. Then look at the dicks who are the
CEO's.. Harvard MBAs! You know, I am a big fan of Obama, BUT the idea of
allowing the SAME clowns who ran the companies into the ground to stay on
with taxpayer money is INSANE! But worse - to bring over Jeff Imelt of GE to
be an "economic advisor" is absurd. Imelt is the guy who took GE and ran it
into the ground. Turned the entire company into shit! Stock was valued at
almost $200 at one time when he started, NOW it is worth LESS than $10 a
share and they keep posting losses. GE was making tons on a great line of
major appliances. Imelt turned that into shit. Same with defense contracts
and the jet engines. There is NOTHING at GE that he hasn't screwed up. He
has taken the NBC franchise into the toilet. Trying to prove that you can
take a primetime lineup and have ratings LOWER than ZERO.

Look at whole industries that have disappeared. Office equipment
including computers, TOTALLY GONE offshore. American brands for the most
part are owned by foreign companies. If something doesn't happen - you will
not be able to buy an AMERICAN car in another couple years. All of the Big
Three are like horses that need to be taken out to the back 40 and SHOT.
Ford is the least totaled of the 3, but is screwed. There is NO point trying
to save Chrysler or GM. They both NEED to go. GM - NEEDS to be in the
category of Nash,, Hudson, Kaiser, Studebaker, Packard etc except those guys
built some good cars.GM specializes in building SHIT. Chrysler has flashes
that MAYBE they could build a good car IF they got rid of the MBA's that run
it. Get some CAR people in there. At least somebody who has SOME knowledge
of what makes a car GO..... Somebody who has a clue as to what the market
needs. Someone who can see past the tip of his nose.

You know - when Henry Ford built the first model "T" there were NO gas
stations. But Ford built the cars. Almost everyone with a brain knows that
we will HAVE to have electric cars, and that batteries are just a short
haul. So HOW do we power these electric cars? Think back to the old trolley
cars and trackless trolley buses. Now - we are NOT going to go back to
overhead wires. Can't we come up with something for the 21st century? If we
build it right, we won't even have to "drive" the cars. Computers will take
us where we need to go. Safely. Can't we figure all this out???

 

There was a girl stuck at a gas station with a pretty decent '66 Mustang,
6 cylinder 'secretary special'. Wouldn't start. We had her crank the key,
the starter ground, no-go. Spark, yup...gas, yup...couldn't tell the
timing without a light, but everything seemed right.

Then my buddy pulled the dipstick...almost right up to the top!!!
We asked the girl when she last had the oil changed. "Oh, I don't think
it's been changed...I tell the guy at the full-service station to fill it
up and add a quart of oil..."

I maintained my composure, but we had to pick my friend up from the
ground, holding on to his sides and almost turning blue cause he was
laughing so much...she said her father told her to do that.

 

You would think car companies want to keep their customers "coming
back"? Maybe that's why some do well and others are staring bankruptcy
in the eye.

 

Its done various ways. They may not have been the first, but the first
cars that I knew of that had these "torque management" schemes were the
1993 Chrysler LH series with the 42LE and 3.5L v6, and the same year
Cadillacs with the Northstar. I don't know the details on how the
Northstar did it but the Chrysler LH only applied torque management on
wide-open-throttle 1-2 shifts. It was done by cutting alternate fuel
injector pulses (basically running on 3 during the upshift). It was
pretty much undetectable.

Later vehicles that still had a direct cable linkage to the throttle
used various "torque management" features involving both retarding the
timing and cutting injector pulses. My wife's 05 PT does this and it
feels for all the world like the throttle is being closed.

Finally there are the throttle-by-wire vehicles, which just frickin'
close the throttle slightly- much cleaner and less noticeble in the feel
of the car, although I find them more audible. Under hard acceleration,
these systems sound very much like a good driver power-shifting a manual
transmission. I *think* that TBW vehicles cut power until the
transmission's input and output sensors show the correct ratio, meaning
that the clutch pack is no longer slipping. The computer then fully
applies the clutch and re-opens the throttle. There's virtually no wear
on the clutch packs this way since the only load on them while the shift
is occurring is the inertia of the crankshaft.



And I have learned to

And with the computer watching the input and output speeds, there really
doesn't have to be much or any real slippage. The computer can just
quickly apply the clutch a few milliseconds before or after the ratio is
perfectly matched as the engine winds down after the computer closes the
throttle and disengages the previous gear.

 

The sentiment may be right, but the logic doesn't follow- For is "doing
well" despite the alleged problems with the Explorer. (I say 'alleged'
because there's a lot of evidence that the only real problem was/is
idiot drivers that drove Explorers like Miatas, and crappy Firestone tires).

 

Ah, but what about an aquintence..!

Haven't had to in years, but I did have an old 60's firebird that I
had to use a breaker bar on once....

 

rubbish. that's pure gullibility if you believe that. there are
absolutely no conditions, ever, under which it's acceptable for a
vehicle to roll just because of a flat. AND there are no conditions
ever where it's acceptable for the roof to collapse killing the
occupants. the exploder had both from inception. they were known
problems, and ford chose to proceed on the basis that the exploder was
quick and cheap to bring that market, and the margins exceeded their
calculated losses from wrongful death lawsuits.

it was a cold blooded bastard that made that call. nothing less than
jail time for manslaughter is appropriate for the individual and
deeply punitive damages for the company and board that condoned it.
it's also a sad indictment when politicians allow themselves to be
bought off on this issue too - they decided to sacrifice innocent
americans to wall street. the whole thing is an utter disgrace.

 

OK, smart guy... then tell me exactly what in the Explorer's engineering
design is responsible for the problem. I mean if it exists and could
have been remedied, then it must be precisely definable and must be a
particular engineering quirk or deficiency that other trucks don't have.
So what is it? I've never heard any explanation that was satisfactory yet.

 

A slightly wider stance, better spring loading and a few other things
eventually done to the newer Ford SUV front suspension.

 

well, you're not addressing the cabin crush problem with this question -
kind of important if the vehicle rolls in the first place.

but moving on, it's a suspension dynamics problem. part of the problem
with leaf springs is that they can have side-to-side movement, not just
up and down. add to that a high center of gravity, narrow wheel base
and soggy damping, and you have a vehicle that will kick on recovery
from one sideways movement /into/ the lunge of the next. the two
combined tip the vehicle. and that brings us back the cabin crush
problem again...

 

Uhhhh.... NO. Leaf springs have LESS lateral movement than trailing-arm
suspensions, typically. They also have inherent anti-roll forces because
they don't like being twisted when one side of the car compresses more
than the other.

And besides, there weren't ever complaints of Jeep Grand Wagoneers
flipping, and they have leaf spring suspensions front and rear.
Cherokees have leading arms front and leafs rear, but they do have solid
axles front and rear which place the roll center in a less
rollover-prone position than independent suspensions do for the most part.

I don't know much about the dynamics of the oddball independent front
suspension that 4x4 Explorers of that vintage used, but it didn't seem
to cause a problem on full-size Fords.

The old Mitsu Montero had a higher CG and narrower track- where are the
complaints there.

"Soggy damping" might be a valid complaint, but I still don't see
anything that makes the Explorer distinctly different than countless
other similar vehicles with essenstially the same layout- Jeeps, the
midsize GM (Trailblazer/Envoy), first-gen Durangos, Pathfinders,
Foreskinners, Xterribles, FJ Poseurs, etc. etc. etc.

 

sorry, that's a misconception. look under the vehicle. see the dampers
set at 45 degrees. that's to try adding a damping component to the
known sideways problem.

sorry, they can roll too.

and most of those vehicles fail modern roll tests. we use a "j" bend
stability test which specifically avoids, the kick back problem i
described. in europe, more rigorously and safely, they use an "s" bend
stability test, and that's where the problems get revealed. our tests
are a fudge. and we fudge our laws in favor of producers, not consumers.

 

I don't have an explorer to look under, but other leaf-spring designs
are EXTREMELY stiff side-to-side. There's no "damper set at 45 degrees"
whatsoever in 90% of leaf spring designs... You're talking about trying
to deflect a 3" wide stack of spring-steel plates.... AINT gonna happen.
Conversely, 4-link systems have to have panhard rods to alleviate
sideways deflection, and most passenger applications have pretty thick
bushings that allow significant axle shift left-to-right, which is why
there are aftermarket Heim joints and delrin alternatives.

Well of course... ANY vehicle CAN roll, even a Viper under the wrong
conditions. And high CG vehicles are more likely to do so... which is
why it all comes back to the loose nut behind the wheel more than the
vehicle, unless there's a proven, specific design defect. I suppose it
could be a "synergy" of a lot of little deficiencies, and that may well
be the case with the Explorer. I never drove one, so I really don't know
if they handle far worse than my Cherokee, which will take any corner
far faster than anyone should take it out of consideration for others on
the road. My 190 horsepower high-sitting, (relatively)
skinny-tire-equipped SUV gets me to and from work *exactly* as fast as
my 400-horsepower, urethane-suspended and sway-bar upgraded muscle car.
And it takes me places the car couldn't go even with 800 horsepower.

Nice hat you pulled that "fact" out of. Got one in felt? Or would you
care to answer the question that was asked: where are the complaints
about those cars compared to the Explorer?

I don't drink pop-culture Kool-aid easily, and the whole Explorer
rollover thing smells a *lot* like a probable handling deficiency not
unlike *many* mediocre vehicles on the road, which then grew into a
media feeding frenzy when the paparazzi smelled a story. It will
continue to do so until someone can give me some engineering-based
reasoning, not silliness like "leaf springs deflect sideways."

 

er, you don't need to /have/ an explorer - you simply need to look at one.

untrue, both as a matter of fact and as a matter of comparison.

<...>

there's a fundamental knowledge gap with everything you're saying. i
don't see you being able to bridge it, so i'm done. have a nice day.

 

This from the guy who doesn't understand the concept of viscosity index
and thinks that 30-weight oil is "always thicker" than 10w30 oil at high
temperatures.

You really need to get a clue. Lots of clues, actually.

 

Generally speaking it IS. Not by any great amount, but it is slightly
thicker. At least the lab tests at Texaco showed that. Maybe liquids flow
differently in YOUR lab?