2011 Raptor SCrew--Trans Downshifted to 5th and Stuck There

Droid said:

By RPM vs. MPH, that is actually 5th.

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if it was it must have been really slow going off the line lol

The Plot Thickens . . .

So, today on the way to the office, I got the "orange wrench" on the center display again, but this time there was no downshift to 5th, nor was there any discernible change in behavior of the transmission (or of the truck at all). Trans temp remained at 190-195.

I ran a vehicle health report on Sync before shutting it off, and this time I got a result (see screenshot below) showing "Urgent--Powertrain Malfunction / Reduced Power." Even after I shut it off and restarted it, the "orange wrench" was still there, so it would appear that this time the code stuck.

I'm going to take it in and drop it with service tonight. I have a strong suspicion that this is a bad PCM, so hopefully it will be easy to trace and an easy swap-out for the tech.

We shall see . . .

kglesq said:

So, today on the way to the office, I got the "orange wrench" on the center display again, but this time there was no downshift to 5th, nor was there any discernible change in behavior of the transmission (or of the truck at all). Trans temp remained at 190-195.

I ran a vehicle health report on Sync before shutting it off, and this time I got a result (see screenshot below) showing "Urgent--Powertrain Malfunction / Reduced Power." Even after I shut it off and restarted it, the "orange wrench" was still there, so it would appear that this time the code stuck.

I'm going to take it in and drop it with service tonight. I have a strong suspicion that this is a bad PCM, so hopefully it will be easy to trace and an easy swap-out for the tech.

We shall see . . .

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hmm. strange. hopefully it's software related. good luck, let us know!!

Randy, what kind of lemon did you sell this poor guy?? lol jk jk

This has certainly been an interesting read and I am more than interested in what the Dealer finds. As few miles as you have, I would suspect a loose connection or something like Birdman states, a software issue. I would get it in asap.

FSM06

FSM06 said:

This has certainly been an interesting read and I am more than interested in what the Dealer finds. As few miles as you have, I would suspect a loose connection or something like Birdman states, a software issue. I would get it in asap.

FSM06

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Thanks FSM, I'll be taking it in first thing tomorrow morning, and I'll let you know what the problem is.

BIRDMAN said:

hmm. strange. hopefully it's software related. good luck, let us know!!

Randy, what kind of lemon did you sell this poor guy?? lol jk jk

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Yep, strange indeed. This follows with the strange trajectory of pretty much every new car I have purchased in the last few years. My last two BMW's both suffered flats in the left rear tire within 1,000 miles--on my X5 it was a nail in the sidewall which was a $250 replacement, and on the M5 it was a large puncture in the center of the tread, which was a $480 replacement. My wife's 2010 Expedition came with a bad a/c compressor from the factory.

The list goes on, but I've learned to be ok with it. On the plus side, once I have my initial problem, the vehicles tend to be trouble-free thereafter.

Frankly, modern vehicles are extremely complex, and given that this is the first year of the select-shift addition to the transmission, you're going to see a bug here and there. Regardless, the truck has a long powertrain warranty, and given that this seems to be a problem not even FSM06 has seen or heard of, I'm guessing it's a fluke.

Any way you cut it, I really like the truck, and I'll again reiterate that the experience I had with Randy was beyond top-shelf.

kglesq said:

Yep, strange indeed. This follows with the strange trajectory of pretty much every new car I have purchased in the last few years. My last two BMW's both suffered flats in the left rear tire within 1,000 miles--on my X5 it was a nail in the sidewall which was a $250 replacement, and on the M5 it was a large puncture in the center of the tread, which was a $480 replacement. My wife's 2010 Expedition came with a bad a/c compressor from the factory.

The list goes on, but I've learned to be ok with it. On the plus side, once I have my initial problem, the vehicles tend to be trouble-free thereafter.

Frankly, modern vehicles are extremely complex, and given that this is the first year of the select-shift addition to the transmission, you're going to see a bug here and there. Regardless, the truck has a long powertrain warranty, and given that this seems to be a problem not even FSM06 has seen or heard of, I'm guessing it's a fluke.

Any way you cut it, I really like the truck, and I'll again reiterate that the experience I had with Randy was beyond top-shelf.

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i'll stay tuned for this.

Man! I sure hope I don't have to deal with something like this.

When was your truck built? Is there any chance that its related to the BCM problems that some trucks had?

I know its unlikely but the thought crossed my mind.

iceman302 said:

Man! I sure hope I don't have to deal with something like this.

When was your truck built? Is there any chance that its related to the BCM problems that some trucks had?

I know its unlikely but the thought crossed my mind.

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I seriously doubt you'll have much in the way of problems. My experience with Ford (and I've owned several) is that they build a quality product. Again, I'm of the belief that this is a fluke--were it endemic to the trucks, you'd have heard about it around here by now from more folks than me.

Mine was built on (I believe) 11/15/2010, which places it in the production run that had the bad BCM issues. It was then placed on an engineering hold, which is why it took so long to ship. I assume that hold was for purposes of replacing and/or inspecting the BCM, but don't know that to an absolute certainty.

My thought is that this may well be related to the BCM issue, but to be clear that is rank speculation on my part. In theory the BCM should not affect transmission operation (which is a PCM function as I understand that the TCM is now integrated into the PCM), however I can see where potential crossover between the two could exist (i.e. if the BCM relays select-shift or other operator-derived powertrain commands to the PCM, and it's sending bad data, or if it can pollute the CAN Bus with bad data, etc. and thereby affect systems which would be nominally unrelated to the BCM)

Regardless, it will be in the hands of folks far better equipped to diagnose and repair the problem than I as of tomorrow morning, so I'm not particularly worried about it.

Stay tuned . . .

Its true that I've owned numerous Fords and I've rarely had any issues. This truck just has so many gadgets and goodies that it makes me a little nervous.

Thanks for the update.