Two very different ways of TRANSMISSION FLUID Drain / Fill method

[jkosh22]

The service schedule is created by the same manufacturer that wants your money. That’s what most maintenance service intervals are. I would take advice from people who own and work on these trucks rather than who built them. Sounds odd but they only do so much research and development. Filtration is nothing new obviously, but money is power. In the end, they would never give the trucks away for free.

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[PNWTremor]

I'm happy to learn things, so thanks but where does your "at a minimum", come from?

Because I was going through the service schedule for my specific VIN yesterday and found no such spec.

Never listen to the manufacturer's service and maintenance intervals. Without going too far down the rabbit hole, it's very clear that Ford turns a profit on things breaking sooner than later (This goes for all automakers, especially in 2025). I plan on keeping my truck for 250-300K miles and so I am very diligent about fluid changes early.

I have personally seen what a 100K mile transmission service on a 10R80 looks like and it's a miracle of engineering that they are still running smoothly at that point. Furthermore, I have seen 10Rs with less than half that with failures because of how they are driven i.e towing a lot and all the time. If your truck is a pavement princess then you are prob ok to replace the filter and fluid every 80-100K but that's the limit. It comes down to how you drive it.

My truck is offroad a lot and my transmission gets near the breakdown limit of Ford's ULV spec (230 degrees) So I'm going to replace mine early.

 

[jkosh22]

Couldn’t agree more. Only thing that would hurt by doing flushes and maintenance sooner, would be your wallet.

 

[PNWTremor]

Couldn’t agree more. Only thing that would hurt by doing flushes and maintenance sooner, would be your wallet.

The most expensive fluid + filter change is the one you never did. A new 10R from Ford with labor is just north of $10K. A new filter with 6-8qts of ULV is just north of $100. You choose haha.

 

[jkosh22]

Totally agree. Did a 10r80 on a 2020 with 102,000 and was 9200 I believe. A fluid and filter change I think is about 800 bucks. Granted the 10r80 is a gamble either way. Just have to do your due diligence and do what you can. It’s the nature of automotive.

 

[teamroper60]

I'm happy to learn things, so thanks but where does your "at a minimum", come from?

Because I was going through the service schedule for my specific VIN yesterday and found no such spec.

Years ago, there were 2 maintenance schedules for new cars/trucks. One was labelled as regular service and the other as severe service. At that time, if you looked at what constituted severe service, it was what better than 90% of vehicles experience. The severe schedule was basically half the intervals of the regular service. While fliuds have certainly improved, I feel pretty certain they stopped giving a severe service intervals so they could claim lower maintenance costs in their advertising materials rather than because those intervals were no longer applicable.

 

[jhelrey]

I did a service on mine at 75K miles. At 100K, I will use a Mityvac and remove as much fluid from the pan as possible and refill.

 

[jkosh22]

Doing the filter at least once is a good idea. Always a motorcraft filter and fluid.

 

[JGDallas]

Just Checked the oil level using the dipstick on my 2022 XL-2WD. 2.7L V6. Truck has around 61k miles of single driving. No towing, no hard driving, 75% highway and 25% city. Plan is to drain and fill for the first time (and folks have assured I should have done it 30k miles ago). Here’s what positively shocking…. The oil level was perfect, the color was wine pink, felt nothing metallic as I rubbed it on back of my palm, and above all…. Doesn’t smell burnt or “different”. Guess what …. Smelt like the fresh oil I am getting to pour in.

Today I’ll extract 5-10 cc using a clean dropper, and do a side by side comparison with fresh Mercon ULV …. Color, smell etc. If the two don’t look/smell/feel too different, I’ll send them to the lab for testing. Will keep you updated with the results.

My 60-yr old Mercedes service manager (with 35 years history as a tech at various brands) told me most vehicles built 2015 onwards are extremely well closed systems, and the oils that circulate are super synthetic with properties that don’t break down easily. Filters inside are robust but are fishnets to trap accidental debris… the size of a birdseed at best… and that’s good enough for the transmission. The best filters on our autos are cabin (highest filtration), engine oil (second best), and engine (third best).

Anyway, still learning, and will post later today with my current 61k mile oil vs fresh oil. Also, thanks for all your feedback, tech or otherwise. I am learning, so it really helps

 

[tsigwing]

The service schedule is created by the same manufacturer that wants your money. That’s what most maintenance service intervals are. I would take advice from people who own and work on these trucks rather than who built them. Sounds odd but they only do so much research and development. Filtration is nothing new obviously, but money is power. In the end, they would never give the trucks away for free.

Unlike the folks you are paying to do the work? They certainly have no interest in doing unnecessary work do they?

 

[jkosh22]

Unlike the folks you are paying to do the work? They certainly have no interest in doing unnecessary work do they?

If it’s a good shop with good techs, no. They will do what’s needed and tell you whay can wait. That’s exactly what we do at my shop. Address their concerns, create a plan to fix and tell them what can be address later.

 

[Davexxxx]

Ok, so I did a fair bit of reading and a bunch of youtubes last night and it is fairly universal, that suggestions of at least drain and fill, happen at 30K mile increments. Same for the transfer case and diffs. Especially if towing is involved.

Since almost half of my miles are towing a TT in the 7500lb class, I'll be taking that seriously. Especially since once, numerical values displayed on my dash, for engine and trans temps, when normally they don't. They were in white, so I thought it might be a new feature via OTA but they disappeared and haven't come back. Snake hypothesized that they were triggered by excess heat. Even though they were white rather than red, now, I'm thinking thats probably a good bet. Don't recall exactly the values but fortunately, it was just for a few minutes, with no accompanying warnings. The analog gauges were never past say, 12:30 - 1:00, safely in the normal range but there must be some sort of threshold to trigger it and some reason for it.

I can get a pump and the arm protectors for proper drain and fills but pulling the pan for a filter change on a PB, is more than I want to tackle anymore. Age catches us all fellas. You aren't as indestructible as you think and small things can add up over time. Stay in shape but be careful.

Anyway, another thing that was universal, was on every filter and pan I saw, both magnets did have metal on them. Some worse than others but all had some. So, I'd like to get that out, at least once. Deciding whether that is at the 30K mark, or 60K, is the only decision left. I'm leaning toward 30K, or even my 3 yr. cutoff coming this June, so that if there are any problems, they'd be under warranty.

 

[JGDallas]

“At a minimum” when it comes with “best intentions” is worth respecting. At least it opens another door to learning and verifying something with more quantitative data. And most of our assessments going to be preventative because we are working on healthy trucks running healthy. We really not breaking something, doing a postmortem, and then concluding what we could have done better.

 

[FirstFord]

The oil level was perfect, the color was wine pink, felt nothing metallic as I rubbed it on back of my palm, and above all…. Doesn’t smell burnt or “different”. Guess what …. Smelt like the fresh oil I am getting to pour in.

Good for you! You live a charmed life (and not towing was a major contributor to your good fortune as well)!

But now you know! You KNOW that the fluid level is correct! So, utilizing the "X" amount of fluid out, followed by "X" amount of fluid in.

I would also offer that because you experienced the good fortune of having fluid that does not appear to be burned, that in itself no way implies that it is not still a good idea to change your fluid!

 

[Suns_PSD]

If you have a non PB, buy the aftermarket pan/ filter & fluid and do the swap around 50K and just drain and refill every 50K afterwards. Sooner if you tow often.

If you have a PB, vacuum out the fluid and replace. I'd recommend doing about 1 gallon every 3rd oil change.

GL.

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