Cerberus

if driving all day only gets the battery to 70%, i'd be checking alternator current output. and crank on every single power hungry accessory immediately after start up while watching the output, see if it hits a threshold below its actual spec. otherwise its possible the battery is just tired.

Changing fluid is good. Compromising the structural integrity of a load bearing member is unnecessary to perform the fluid change, it just makes it easier. Also, if in fact the unit has the original fluid and is in as good a condition as you say, that would suggest that regular fluid changes are less necessary than you might think. Mine ran empty for many miles and did not fail completely.. yet.

Nice find. I wouldn't do a kerosene flush, especially with the condition of the RDU and it's fluid being apparently very good. I also would not drill it to create a drain, nor change the fluid every 10k.. but that's just me.

this is the information i was looking for, thank you

back when i was working on jaguars (XJ8 mostly for a while), i changed a lot of small cartridge style water pumps with plastic impellers that had shattered, and (again, in my experience) no, the plastic does not dissolve. If it did, it would not be a suitable material for an impeller in the first place. where all the fragments of impeller ended up, there is no way to know, but many vehicles had odd cooling issues after a pump went bad and grenaded. And a cast iron impeller will not fail, except perhaps by corrosion, and we've covered that angle well enough.

intermittent failures are often challenging to trace down, and require as much information as possible. but just off the cuff, my first thought was the a/c clutch relay, or a loose connection at the compressor for the clutch also possible; software glitch/failure, loose ground, loose connection to a pressure sensor in the system if it were me, i'd bring it back to the guy who did the alternator and a/c service and say, i already paid you to fix this problem, which didn't start until you worked on the car, so fix it for free. but the likelihood that will turn out well is probably not great.

to be fair, there is an obvious fluid leak stain at the output shaft, so it probably ran dry. If the fluid level is kept right, they last quite well. I know i ran with mine 'dry' or effectively empty for quite a while. like tens of thousands of miles, and yes its shot now, but i can't help but wonder if it would in this state if it had fluid in it the whole time. Bad mechanic (me), no donut. 😒

I have never seen a high side port cap that could hold back over 150PSI.. so i'm gonna have to call BS on this one. Shraders do not wear out either. Why would they? Unless they are being opened and closed (slam shut under pressure) there is no reason for a valve that is not moving ever to wear out.

Exactly PTU suffers massive heat soak in 2.7L applications from the rear catalytic converter and turbo. Currently driving with my RDU torque coupling clutch unplugged which should equate to zero load on the PTU, but fluid temp is still well above trans fluid temp when driving around town.

One way to reduce the cruise control braking on downhill is to accelerate a bit above your cruise set point, then just coast and you'll notice less braking to bring you back down to the set number

zero disagreement from me!

cancel / resume button would make that pretty easy.

Well as an example, my 2011 fusion sport did not use brakes to slow down, it would downshift the transmission and use engine braking

not the first or likely the last time i've been wrong.. 🤣 i would bet there is a way to turn it off by adjusting a value with forscan.. but i don't know which one where. I do know there was a lot of overlap with the F150 forscan settings so that might be an avenue to research it, through those forums or obviously on the forscan site directly

if you turn off the adaptive cruise it should go to stupid cruise mode, which should not use brakes to decelerate if going above the cruise set point