JohnCT

Good work. Screwing up the courage to get this done some Sunday before it totally grenades.. The one I have is also a G and was disappointed to find it has no drain. I've read that the B version (export) has a drain! ? I have a buddy in the exhaust biz and was thinking of having him spin all the exhaust bolts and leaving them loose for me. I no longer have torches and the exhaust scares me more than any part of this job. Did you replace any seals? I've seen a couple of procedures on line but am not sure what, if any, seals are required to be replaced if a new PTU is installed. John

It's a chicken or the egg thing really. Is the loss of fluid causing heat build up, or is heat build up causing loss of fluid? How about both? Loss of fluid causes the remaining fluid to have to transfer more heat and cook faster, but why is it losing fluid? Reading about this problem shows anecdotal evidence that seals are one problem, but PTUs also blow oil out of their vents due to heat. Seals leak for a variety of reasons, but heat soak will kill seals faster than anything else. In our case, the PTU is known to run scorching hot heating the whole assy, including the seals. Seals that get that hot become brittle, shrink, and leak over time. Losing fluid in an already hot running device makes the device run hotter, yes. A vicious cycle to be sure. The procedure to replacing the seals in the PTU in chassis include heating the seal with a heat gun. The procedure warns of overheating the seal with the heat gun lest the seal be compromised. In any case, keeping the PTU topped off is indeed a very important step in keeping these running, and you've made a great point about careful and diligent maintenance of the PTU. Since it only holds about half a quart, any minor leak will quickly reduce it's volume by a big percentage. Losing half a quart of transmission fluid in 50K miles goes unnoticed when the transmission holds 12 quarts, but half a quart of lost fluid from the PTU means it's empty. Anyone who owns an Edge/Explorer/Flex/Taurus AWD who doesn't heed the warnings of this thread and the dozen other PTU related threads is a fool. If you have any mechanical inclination at all, put your car on ramps or a lift (safety first!!!) and remove the fill plug of the PTU. Pump in as much fresh gear oil as it will take until it leaks out. Do this for every oil change. If you can't do it, have someone else do it for you. If you can draw out any fluid from the PTU, do so and replace with fresh fluid. Do as often as you can. With any luck you can avoid this problem. John

I'd love to be in on the meetings when the policy is addressed. Is it better to solve the problem quickly and take of the owners caught before the fix, or to let it run a 10 year cycle? My brother's brother in law was a Lincoln buyer like no other (probably has the Lincoln logo tattoo'd on his heinie) until his last Continental. This car blew both it's 3.8 Essex V6 engine AND it's AXOD transaxle in less than 60K miles. He switched to Audis and will never buy another Lincoln, and who can blame him? That Lincoln is trying to resurrect the Continental is a joke. They'd have to wait 30 years for the stench of that stink bomb to dissipate. The 3.8 was a known head gasket puker since the mid eighties, and Ford NEVER fixed it. The front drive transaxles fail mostly from bad seals causing pressure loss inside. Better seals and cooling would have made these pretty good transmissions. I tried on my wife's car, but even an extraordinarily thin flexible tube can only remove a tiny bit of fluid because the suction tube runs into gear obstruction only a short way down into the PTU case. Servicing the PTU requires removing it according to Ford. Otherwise, drawing out a small bit, adding new, running the car to mix it, and repeat enough to diluting it with new fluid is the only way to service it. My guess is that it would take at least 10 of these "services" to dilute the fluid enough to consider most of it replaced, and given how the fluid is constantly tortured by heat, this should be done every 25K miles at least. Anyone who intends to keep his Edge/Explorer/Flex/TaurusX should do this religiously. If they had drain plugs, I would do this every oil change. I have had a few battles with the accountants over this. That is one of the most true statements about business I've ever read. It's my belief that it's a combination of low fluid volume and location in the chassis next to the catalytic converter that is cooking these things to death. The PTU is a simple gear box; there is no clutch or viscous coupling that would generate large amounts of heat. Since the flash point of the original fluid is about 375 degrees, the fact that the fluid is cooking into sludge means the temp of the PTU is hitting this mark if not exceeding it. It's hard to believe just the friction of gear mesh and bearing action would cause this much heat. That leaves environmental factors such as it's location so close to the catalytic converter. Mitigating the heat damage alone would quadruple or more the life of these boxes in my opinion. Supposedly, export models (such as those to the Middle East) have liquid cooled PTUs. Adding liquid cooling to those built without it would cost more to Ford per unit than they probably made on the vehicle when they built it, so I wouldn't expect that kind of solution. My solution would be to add a heat shield to all vehicles with this problem. With any luck, a simple shield could be designed that would not only shield the PTU from the cat, but also direct a bit of undercar air flow around the PTU aiding it's cooling. It's a lot of work now to retrofit almost 10 years worth of production but it would have been painless if they started adding them waaaaaaaaaaay back in 2008 at the latest. Second, drill and tap the original design with a drain plug. With a Ford engineered procedure and template, this also would be fairly easy to implement even in-chassis, at least a lot easier than the procedure to change the PTU seals!. A lot of work now, easy if they did it back in 2007. I assume they did something to address the heat soak in the redesigned Edges (2014?), so maybe someone with a newer one can comment. John

As an engineer who has been involved with cost decision making, I can think of a few reasons. The primary reason is cost, but even that breaks down to sub categories. 1) What exactly does it cost to physically modify the original design? I'm not a mechanical engineer but I can't see performing one more machining process adding much to the cost. A simple aluminum heat shield is an easy stamping that wouldn't cost much. In any case, this is a number that can be figured out to the penny. 2) The potential cost of lawsuits that may arise if Ford does improve these. How? Simple; a redesign of this obviously faulty system becomes an admission that there's a problem with it. This opens up all kinds of problems. It's a delicate balance; deny there's anything wrong by leaving the original design intact and ticking off your customers or risking lawsuits by redesigning instead. This cost cannot be accurately computed, particularly in this litigious society we live in. 3) Cost of no redesign compared to lost future sales. I'm sure there are very accurate tables that will predict when a customer feels reamed to the point of permanently abandoning his loyalty to a company. Perhaps Ford thinks it will be cheaper for them to lose some sales compared to the money it would take to correct the problem (ethics be damned). In my case I stayed too long, but no one put a gun to my head and made me go back to Ford after I left the first time. I have never been involved in a company's finances anywhere near the level of the Ford Motor Company, so I admit I may be completely wrong. Still, if it's my call, I want an engineering team on top of such an obvious major system problem such as this AWD setup as soon as the problem becomes known. It's an excellent performing system, but if it lasts 30 to 60K miles, something's wrong. Identify the problem and get the fix in the system as soon as possible, and extend that particular part warranty for the poor suckers with the early models to 100K miles as a sign of good faith and to keep their loyalty. As I posted earlier, I am one of the reasons this PTU design remains junk even after so many years. How you ask? I've been screwed over by Ford with two blown 3.8 Essex V6s and seven various Fords all with blown transmissions before 100K miles, yet I went back to Ford for this Edge even after I had bought a Grand Cherokee instead of an Explorer and had fabulous luck and no major problems with it. If consumers would pay with their feet and walk into another brand, Ford would have to clean up these designs that are bad out of the chute and remain bad for 10 years lest they have no more suckers to buy the product. I won't make that mistake again. Once my wife's Edge is repaired, I'll detail it and put in on Craigslist before we get enough miles on it to blow the new PTU, probably in the spring. It's a 2009 Limited in Pearl with Nav and is gorgeous. I'm sure some poor sap will buy it. John

I would tap it, but I'm not completely convinced the G is the correct sub for the D. Three Ford dealers said no, and the one that said yes subbed the G for the D after I ordered it. If I mess with this, I won't be able to return it. I understand that and agree with you. I truly believe Ford is trying to build the best car they can. As an engineer myself, I understand that unforseen circumstances affect a design that was thought to be both reliable and cost effective, but things do go wrong, and the policy in place that follows an unforseen problem is what bothers me. Ford could have been the biggest car manufacturer in America and pushed the imports back by double digit percentage points, but it's the way management repeatedly fails to mitigate the damage from engineering mistakes that drives people away, and there are way too many examples of this for me to get into. But sticking to the Edge/Explorer/Flex PTUs, the way to have handled this was easy and I believe more cost effective than doing nothing. Back in 2007 when the PTUs were known to be short lived, they should have put an engineering team on this immediately. Assuming that there was no more room to make the PTU case larger to hold more fluid, they should have at least came up with a heat shield to put between the PTU and the catalytic converter on the 2008s. That alone would have likely saved about 3/4s of these. Second, they should have added a drain plug that allowed routine servicing. With both a heat shield in place and routine servicing of PTUs every 50K would eliminate at least 95% of PTU failures. After these two implementations, they should have exteneded the PTU warranty to 100K miles for the early guinea pigs at least. When my wife's Sable blew it's transmission (had two Sables; two for two in blown trannys), we replaced it with a Jeep Grand Cherokee after having dismissed the Explorer because I didn't trust it's transmission. The Jeep has been handed down to our oldest son who now has 260K miles on it and it's running on it's original engine and transmission and running perfectly. When we gave the Jeep to our son, we went back to Ford for the Edge as a car on probation. I said when we bought it that if it had a major system failure (originally engine or transmission), that would be it forever with Ford unless Ford made good for the problem. Well, I'm in for at least a thousand dollars right now with the transfer case, so the Edge failed the probation. Too bad because my wife loves this car, and until this happened, we were looking at the Lincoln version next. I'll install the PTU, send it out for detail, unload it, and that will be it for Fords for us. The thought of having this POS spit it's transfer case in 30K more miles is more than I can bear (and these do die as early as 30K miles). My brother just bought a new Grand Cherokee Overland and loves it. That's probably our next vehicle. John

No need to post pictures; it's the same crap in a different part number. No drain plug. Still screwing up my courage to drill and tap this POS box. What I don't understand is why the part number progressed from the A through the D then stopped and was listed as discontinued. The G suffix number according to the company I bought the box from said it will sub for the discontinued D, although other Ford dealers say there is no sub. To say I am disappointed with Ford is a gross understatement. I've been a Ford buyer for years but said a couple of years ago that this Edge was a probationary vehicle to me. Mostly my Fords have been reliable except for the automatic transmissions. 7 out of the 9 Fords I've owned since my wife and I married in 1985 have needed transmission work before their time (less than 150K miles and 5 of them less than 100K miles). I've also had two 3.8V6s that blew head gaskets less than 90K miles. Again, Ford knew about the aluminum head sealing on the cast iron 3.8 since the 80s and never corrected it, leaving us poor suckers to suffer. My wife loves this Edge but I said going in that if I had a major systems failure in this car that would be it. This isn't a transmission problem, but much like the automatics, Ford knew about the short life of this transfer case and did not fix the design, nor have they even provided a simple drain plug on any of the subsequent versions which would allow simple routine maintenance to keep it alive. A simple bolt in heat shield would probably reduce the temperature (which is killing these boxs) enough to keep the seals from dying and the oil from cooking. Since I can't be assured of the new box lasting much more than 30K miles or so, I'm getting rid of it and moving on, and whatever we replace it with, it won't be a Ford. Part of the problem is that I have admittedly enabled Ford to keep pulling this crap by continuing to buy their products. If Ford had updated the box with a simple drain plug back in 2007 when the problem became known, I might have forgiven them. But I've had enough. Thanks for the help and advice guys. John

The good news is that the G that's on the way should fit. The bad news is that I could have gotten the G at dealer cost if the G was listed as a sub for the D. Sheesh.. I hope at least the G comes with a drain port for my trouble. Thanks for the info. John

I ordered a AT4Z7251D for my wife's Edge from a buddy with connections. He called me back to say that part was discontinued with no sub. I emailed Tasca Ford and they told me the same thing. I then asked if the G version I'd seen on line would sub and they said there was no sub. They suggested a salvage part. Since the lifespan of these is between 30K and 80K miles (we got to 55K) that's out of the question. Panicked, I found a listing for an new Ford part and ordered it. I got an email from the company said the part was superceded by the G which they billed me extra for and shipped. So this Ford dealer says the G replaces the D but Tasca Ford said no. Is there any significant difference between the G and the D and is the G indeed an official sub? John

Feel free to jump down to my questions at the bottom. I always like to add information for those who like details . So the wife calls me last week and her 2009 Edge suddenly having fits. She described loud noise, and a bang like "the engine fell out" and noises much worse right at stop. She also said the airbag light went on and it felt like it lost power steering. She was a mile from home and limped it home. When I got home I gingerly backed it out of the driveway and went for a shake down and it felt and sounded mostly normal. All I can feel is a very slight shudder (not engine) when slowly accellerating from a stop, almost like running over those warning tar strips at the edge of a highway but nowhere near as loud or tactile. Doing some on line reading about noises, vibrations, etc. it turns out the PTU is a known issue, and I think that's my problem. I removed the magnetic fill plug and cleaned off what looked like moly axle grease from it. I vacuumed out what fluid I could (which wasn't much), and it took at least half a quart (far more than I got out) and that's about all it holds anyway. I'm guessing there was a leak but I've never seen any oil spots in the driveway. Still, it seemed quite low on fluid. A follow up drive after I added new gear oil showed no improvement, but let me say that if someone just borrowed the car, they might not even notice that almost inperceptible shudder at 5-10 mph. Otherwise it runs smooth as silk at speed as it always has. Having thought about it all last night, I couldn't reconcile the "bang" and "like the engine fell out" and finding no smoking gun underneath and now I wonder if the PTU/Transfer case is destroyed inside and not transferring any power to the rear at all. There's no rain in the forcast so I may wet down my driveway and see if I can spin the front wheels while someone watches the back. So two questions: 1) Is it possible the PTU came apart inside and is just sitting there like a lump of metal? 2) Have they improved the part or at least put in a drain plug that will allow service to the PTU? 3) Is the PTU replaceable in the driveway with just ramps/jack stands? (does the subframe need to be dropped) John EDIT: well, the PTU isn't totally blasted. I put my floor jack under the radiator support and raised the entire front of the car. I put it in drive and I could feel the back wheels engage and push against the floor jack...