GEN 1 New to me 2013 not upshifting under hard acceleration

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WarEagle135

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No power after 4500 RPM and not upshifting under hard acceleration

Hey All,

Thanks for reading. I just purchased a used 2013 Raptor over the weekend and am confused by the transmission behavior. Unfortunately since the vehicle is new to me I don't know all of the history. However it is CPO'd by Ford and looks to be in great shape so this was surprising. The truck will normally shift through all gears when normally driving, but acts really weird under hard acceleration. For example if I punch it on the highway it will downshift to the right gear and it will pull hard, but then it seems to hit a wall at about 5,000 RPM and the acceleration sharply dies off. It feels like a governor but I'm not at redline or top speed. The transmission will continue holding the same gear but I'm barely accelerating and the RPMs aren't increasing much. It feels like a CVT transmission if you know the feeling when you floor one of those; the engine is still spinning at a high RPM but it's essentially a constant RPM that's not increasing.

If I lift my foot off the gas the truck will shift up and then continue accelerating again. It's very strange and something that caught me off guard when I punched it to pass a semi that was swaying too close for comfort. I know it wasn't the top speed governor as I was only going about 85mph. I've repeated this a few times at different speeds and am seeing the same reaction from the truck. For whatever reason once the truck downshifts to accelerate it just wants to keep holding that gear instead of shifting up to continue accelerating.

The truck is covered by a CPO warranty so I'm not worried about paying a ton out of pocket, but I want to see if there is a common fix for this before I take it to the dealer and look like an idiot. I'm going to try unplugging the negative battery terminal tonight to see if resetting the adaptions help at all.

Any ideas? Am I missing something here?

EDIT: here's a link to the video of what it's doing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2hlM63vIEw
I have also verified that MyKey is not active so it's not a setting in there.

EDIT 2: My local dealer found the solution. The good news is that it was something very very simple, the bad news is that I probably look like an idiot. There was a piece of foam that was wedged between the intake box and the fender that was restricting air intake and was choking the truck at high RPMs. Likely cause is that during the maintenance service and CPO inspection prior to my purchase the tech managed to leave something behind; likely while changing the air filter. Ultimately it turned out to be something simple, but it definitely had me worried. The truck sounds much better now and has a lot more power.
 
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mmaterni

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Hey All,

Thanks for reading. I just purchased a used 2013 Raptor over the weekend and am confused by the transmission behavior. Unfortunately since the vehicle is new to me I don't know all of the history. However it is CPO'd by Ford and looks to be in great shape so this was surprising. The truck will normally shift through all gears when normally driving, but acts really weird under hard acceleration. For example if I punch it on the highway it will downshift to the right gear and it will pull hard, but then it seems to hit a wall at about 5,000 RPM and the acceleration sharply dies off. It feels like a governor but I'm not at redline or top speed. The transmission will continue holding the same gear but I'm barely accelerating and the RPMs aren't increasing much. It feels like a CVT transmission if you know the feeling when you floor one of those; the engine is still spinning at a high RPM but it's essentially a constant RPM that's not increasing.

If I lift my foot off the gas the truck will shift up and then continue accelerating again. It's very strange and something that caught me off guard when I punched it to pass a semi that was swaying too close for comfort. I know it wasn't the top speed governor as I was only going about 85mph. I've repeated this a few times at different speeds and am seeing the same reaction from the truck. For whatever reason once the truck downshifts to accelerate it just wants to keep holding that gear instead of shifting up to continue accelerating.

The truck is covered by a CPO warranty so I'm not worried about paying a ton out of pocket, but I want to see if there is a common fix for this before I take it to the dealer and look like an idiot. I'm going to try unplugging the negative battery terminal tonight to see if resetting the adaptions help at all.

Any ideas? Am I missing something here?
Try manual shifting and see how that works. Are you in regular driving mode as well? Not off road mode or how haul? Do it act the same in those modes? Either way does not sound like normal operation. If unplugging the neg terminal doesn't work I would take it in for warranty work. Would probably do that anyway to document occurrence. Good luck.

Famous last words, "if you hit it faster it will smooth out some!"
 
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WarEagle135

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Same problems still exist after pulling the negative battery terminal.

I was able to take a quick video to help better explain what I'm talking about. You can see that when I punch it the truck downshifts to 3rd and takes off, but then falls on its face around 4,500 RPM and doesn't continue to accelerate. Does the same thing in manual mode.

Could the previous owner have had it on some type of valet mode or RPM limit?

Not sure what's causing this but it's annoying as shit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2hlM63vIEw
 
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WarEagle135

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Do you have a CEL or OBDII code appearing?
No CEL or code. That's what led me to think it may be some kind of governor setting, but from what I can tell there's not a RPM setting.

Amazing that this made it through the CPO certification. Once I learn more on Saturday I'll be having a nice chat with the manager.
 
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