2009 Transmission Woes (long!)

[zim]

Hello all,

 

Our 2009 Limited has fairly low miles for it's age - about 109k on the odometer now.

 

Over the last year it has slowly developed problems with the transmission jumping up and down between gears when going about 45mph.  It also had trouble finding first gear when rolling slowly in a line of traffic - for example - a drop off line at school.

 

So we brought it to a local transmission shop that was highly recommended.

 

They told us the trans needed a complete overhaul - and because it has low miles and we intend to let our son start driving it soon, we thought it would be a good time to finally get it fixed.

 

They had the vehicle for nearly a week.  They replaced the torque converter, the pump assembly, the reverse drum, solenoid assembly, input and output speed sensors, and the valve body assembly.  They also listed new ATF and a master overhaul clutch / piston / filters / steels kit.

 

Also on the list, was a tow to the local ford dealer who had to do some "programming" once it was rebuilt.  If I had known he couldn't do everything there, I may have just taken it to the dealer in the first place.  Too late now!

 

We brought the car home and they told us it may take up to 500 miles for the car to relearn all the new tolerances in the transmission.   In the meantime, if it did some weird slipping or hard shifting, that would be normal while it was learning.

 

So about 550 miles later, the car is now worse than it was before.

 

It still hunts for the correct gear around 45 mph.  Especially when going slightly uphill.

It slips going into first gear from a stop, where sometimes it takes several seconds to catch and take off.

It clunks really hard going into reverse sometimes.

Is still shifts hard at random times at any speed.

 

None of the above happens every time.  It is random and not always repeatable.  Sometimes it will behave for 10 miles before something bad happens again.  But it always does eventually.

 

The trans shop gave us an 18k mile warranty, so we brought it back.

 

Now the trans shop is telling me that they had some "communication errors" in the car when it was first being diagnosed, and also while it was being reprogrammed.  This of course didn't stop them from going ahead and overhauling it without telling me about that first.

 

The thought now is that, there may be a problem with a computer outside the transmission that is not allowing it to relearn the proper programming correctly.

Could be a bad computer somewhere - or possibly just a bad connection.

 

So my question to any of you experts out there is - does this all seem plausible?  Is this a common problem when the trans gets overhauled?  If so what should I tell them to look for?  Any similar stories?  How did you finally get it working well?

 

Thanks!

 

-Zim