6.2 Transmission Sudden Downshift Pulling Heavy Load

[JohntheDrummer]

First off, I am asking this for a friend who has an F-350 Dually, I hope it's ok to ask this here since he has the 6.2/R680 engine/tranny combo, the same combo that Raptors have. This is a brand new (2011) truck and he has one of those campers that sits in the bed of the truck. He took the truck on vacation and was having some MAJOR transmission issues, which concerns me too since I have the same transmission. Hopefully you Ford Tecs can help. All these scenarios occurred while in Tow/Haul mode.

While driving on the highway for some time, he came to a stop at an intersection. The tranny refused to shift down to first and remained in 6th. He finally had to shift into park and then into drive to get it to come back into first gear.
While driving down a steep grade, he used the transmission to keep his speeds down by tapping the brake. (I guess the transmission is supposed to downshift each time you tap the brake to keep your speeds manageable while descending a hill. I was unaware of this feature and it may be only on the F-350's Trans programming). Ok, now he's at the bottom of the hill and now the transmission will not upshift into second, third, and on up.
He also had the transmission suddenly downshift at highway speed sending the 6.2 into redline and would not shift up again!!! He spent an entire day of his vacation at a Ford dealership and they went above and beyond staying past closing time trying to help him with these problems, making multiple calls to Ford for him. They made things a bit better but then he had the last scenario of the truck 's sudden downshift I mentioned. He only had 6000 miles on this truck now, and I can tell you he broke the truck in properly before he mounted his camper. This is pretty scary stuff, and I told him I'd run it through you guys here since we run the same trans. Any help would be appreciated. He's thinking of getting rid of it and going back to a Government Motors product! Thanks in advance!

 

[bstoner59]

Ya the 6speed has the downhill engine braking regardless of engine....in tow//haul mode. It is kind of helpful. Just a tiny tap on the brake and it gives a downshift. I assume your friend had the truck in tow/haul mode. Did he try taking it out and did it continue to behave poorly?

 

[JohntheDrummer]

Yeah, he took it out of Tow/Haul to try and clear it, but continued to have issues. I forgot to mention too that when the big downshift happened (sending it to redline) he was on a multiple lane freeway and went to pass someone. When he pressed the pedal down to drop it down a gear or two, it dropped WAY down, and then it would not upshift. I know I would have been quite upset, being in that kind of traffic and something like that happens...