Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
The converter shudder in the 4R70W (and not in the AOD it was based on.....) didn't affect the life of the transmission. And for a "poorly designed" transmission, they sure held up well in the F-150, Crown Vic, Grand Marquis, Lincoln Town Car, Expedition, Explorer...etc and in LEO and TAXI service......
There are a two incorrect assumptions you made here:
1. That I was referring to the 4R70W
2. That I was referring to torque converter shudder
Although there are more Ford transmissions that come to mind as well, the one I had on my mind was the AX4S, which even new, had transmission shudder issues with the internal clutches unrelated to torque converter lockup. That definitely will send a transmission straight to the Lake of Fire. Mercon V is simply a semi-synthetic fluid designed to deal with all clutch overheating (the cause of clutch shudder) issues across its transmission range.
Indeed, the 4R70W's issue was in its converter, but for the Windstar A4XS, the problem was pretty much everything. Ford knew they had to upgrade that transmission's components before using it to lug around a lardass like the Windstar.
Where the 4R70W is concerned, revise your statement about the 4R70W to include only those which have had their roller clutches replaced with the mechanical diode. Up until that point, the only great thing about fleet service 4R70W vehicles was that the shatbox could be cheaply replaced when it took a dump.
When I bought my 93 Mark VIII (first car the 4R ever came in) the 4R was a pile, and it pretty much stayed that way for the next 5 years, and the next 2 4R equipped vehicles that I owned. It came from the bad old days when Ford came to the conclusion that to make a smooth transmission, you just make the clutches slip as much as possible between gears. Lucky for Ford, I liked LM8's enough to get past the tranny.
If any early 4R70W's did do well in fleet service, it's probably only because it was a standard procedure at many motor pools to automatically replace the torque converter with a better unit and install a shift kit on first scheduled or necessary transmission service, such as Jerry Wroblewski's "Jerry Mod" designed to deal with the excessive slippage between gears. Jerry Wroblewski happens to be one of the engineers behind the AODE/4R70W. nobody would know better than him what's wrong with that thing.
What I find amazing is that you can condemn an entire brand's powertrain engineering based on what is essentially one transmission here: the AX4S.
You've been tossing around statements on this board that Ford can't engineer transmissions, Ford overloads transmissions....etc but they all appear to be based on one freakin' transmission model here. Did one fail and cause you to lose a loved one on the way to the hospital or something?
- GM has made some pretty poor transmissions in the past.
- Ford has made some pretty poor transmissions in the past. This would be one of them.
- Honda has made some pretty poor transmissions in the past. My MIL owns one in an Odyssey.
- Chrysler has made some pretty poor transmissions in the past.
But they've all made some pretty bloody good ones too. And aside from the converter shudder, the 4R70W, AOD, and AOD-E were generally pretty good transmissions (I have one with coming up on 400K on it).
Regarding Jerry, yes, the J-mod is a popular upgrade for the 4R70W, making the shifts faster and firmer. And Ford SHOULD have upgraded the slushbox for Mark VIII use in this manner from the get-go. I can agree with you there. But a quick look to guys like Lentech will show that the issues in this application weren't because the transmission was junk or poorly designed. There were things that should have been upgraded/beefed-up that weren't initially. These items were fixed later.
Your criticisms of Ford here apply to any auto manufacturer, so if you have a VALID reason for singling out Ford, I'd be interested to hear it.
