Hi all,

I have a 2001 Ford Windstar that has 100,000 miles and has been very well maintained. I recently drove it from flat Illinois to the mountains of Pennsylvania and Virginia. While driving the steep inclines, I felt what seemed to be transmission slip right at 55 mph, go 54 runs fine, go 56, runs fine - go 55 - car shakes and shudders. This only happened on the inclined roads, flat or downhill the car ran like it always does.

After arriving at my destination in VA, the car ran great on day 1 - no problems (and no speeds over 45mph) but today it started doing this Same thing at 35 mph (on inclines) +/- 1 mph clears up the problem. After about 30 minutes of driving, the Emissions light came on the van shuddered (it didn't die), but it went off almost immediately, and did it 2 more times in the next 5 minutes. I took it to Autozone and had it code scanned, but it came up with No Codes (the Emissions light was off and it was running fine when I got there).

The Autozone guy said it all sounds like a bad tank of gas to him - could I be so lucky? I need to drive this thing home to IL in a couple of days, not sure what to do.

Any advice on what to do next?

Thanks,
Tim

Oh I forgot to add, Trans fluid level and color is good, there is no burning smell on the dip stick.

What does very well maintained include?

TxGM: All scheduled maintenance, including a trans flush @ 96K. Regular oil changes, et cetera. Thanks for checking out my post, I've read a lot of your advice.

Thanks,
Tim

Was the pan dropped and cleaned, filter replaced, and refilled with Mercon V every 30,000 miles?

ATXs are the weak link in FWD vehicles. It sounds, to me, like varnish may be building up on the clutch packs, which are now starting to slip. I would only use Mobil 1 Synthetic Multi-Vehicle ATF or Amsoil Universal Synthetic ATF in your Windstar, still changing it every 30,000 miles. Consider adding AutoRx to the transmission--follow their instructions explicitly. If this does not solve the problem, then you are likely not far from rebuilding or replacing the ATX.

I am DIYer in something's, but I have the dealer do the tranny maintenance, so if that is standard practice at Ford, then yes, if not, then I don't know.

Regular Mercon V was developed to help eliminate shudder. The problem is that it's a synthetic blend, with only about 20% synthetic. I was not impressed how Mercon V held up in my 2000 Taurus, when I first serviced the transmission at 28,000 miles. The crud in the bottom of the pan blew me away. I've only used full-synthetic ATF every since. Pan crud is now almost non-existent and upshift and downshifts are flawless. No shudder at all.