PTU drain plug drill and tap

[Brian K]

I asked at a local tranny shop to save an old PTU that they removed so I could have a look at the inside myself. I got a call yesterday that they had one so I went to pick it up. It appeared to me that the reason for failure was that the oil was venting so the owner wanted it replaced. $2200. I turned the input/output shaft by hand and it felt smooth with very little gear play and in line with what I expected and would consider normal. I drained what oil was left and got about 175 ml. These things take 530 ml to fill to the bottom of the fill port so it was obviously near empty. It didn't appear that the seals were leaking. So I took it apart.

Sure enough as in other pictures posted by others, the thing was full of black greasy sludge all over the place including the vent area. My impression of what happens (and to verify what others have said here too) is that heat is cooking/burning the oil over time and turning it into a sludge although nothing smelled burnt. Then as the liquid oil level gets lower and lower because the sludge gets stuck to the PTU walls and crevices, the gear turning causes oil to froth and spray up into the vent area and get pushed out the vent, rather than getting dragged around the gears and bearings, thus lowering the oil level even more. The bearings appeared to be still quite smooth in this PTU and I didn't feel any roughness when turning the gears individually. There was black thick oil on all the bearings and the gears didn't show signs of wear.

My overall impression of this PTU, was that with oil changes, it could have been saved and kept in service. Thus , to me, this really validates regular oil changes to keep the PTU in good shape and I'm happy that putting in a drain and changing PTU oil regularly should keep it running well for a long time. Even if multiple oil changes are done and the greasy substance isn't cleaned out completely by regular flushing and diluting the sludge, adding oil and keeping it full enough not to spray out the vent area and keeping the bearings in oil at the proper level should keep this lasting indefinitely. There was no obvious wear and there was no grit or evidence of filings in the sludge either - the sludge was just cooked oil almost like grease.

So based on my observations, if you change/add oil even after you first notice drips on the driveway, you should have some hope in keeping your PTU alive. Ignore it and low oil level will eventually result in bearing/total PTU failure. For the life of me, I can't understand why anyone is there right mind (Ford Engineers) would have called this a lifetime fill. Shame on them. Perhaps they forgot that this thing is so close to the hot exhaust. A higher temperature oil spec might have helped too - but who am I to know - I'm only an electrical engineer not a mechanical engineer LOL

Edited July 30, 2016 by Brian K

[coronan]

Awesome work Brian!

 

Can you clean it up and check the pattern with gear marking compound?

Do you have a dial indicator to check backlash?

[WWWPerfA_ZN0W]

Marketing trumps engineering, every time.

[Brian K]

How do you measure or check the pattern with gear marking compound? Everything is very black and sludgy inside so cleaning it out will be a royal PITA - more than a few flushes with new gear oil or tranny oil could ever possible accomplish. Perhaps brake clean will do a good job of it but there really isn't much point in cleaning it out for the fun of it.

 

The gear lash I was talking about was easiest to feel by turning the rear output shaft to see how much it turned before it turned the input shaft on the Drivers Side. It was barely noticeable but there was just a bit - I know that is not technical enough - but I'd say 3-4 degrees of movement.

It sure was interesting to see just a few gears and bearings inside and nothing really damaged.

[EDST777]

Hi! Whether I would like to learn somebody had such symptoms as in my case to define possible malfunction.

My problem in the following: at a set of speed with 20 km/h till 30-40 km/h ( perhaps when switching transfer with the first on the second or with the third on the fourth) there is a kick (not ringing, once). It seems to me around PTU, but there is no key shining and mistakes on a board. Farther I go in the normal mode. In a week I observed it three or four times. My suspicions on problems of PTU or it is a problem of the automatic transmission which after replacement of oil began to be shown ? How you think that it can be? Thanks.

P.S.:I read about a cutting problem ax - slits between the automatic transmission and PTU, about a problem of destruction of hypoid transfer to PTU if it so, it can be shown thus, someone heard about such behavior? What my actions? I need to go and wait for malfunction to be shown more considerably so far?
Thanks.

Edited September 3, 2016 by EDST777

[bp123]

I am looking at buying a 2015 Ford Edge Sport AWD and I just spent the night reading this thread and researching the PTU issues. This is an incredible thread and I would like to thank all of the people that took the time to contribute too it.

I can't find much related to the PTU and 2015/2016 models but I did find a couple of posts that hinted the 2015+ model now has a PTU drain plug from the factory. Can anyone confirm this?

 

Obviously no mechanical part can be expected to last forever but this PTU issue is an outright scam. If not for the ability to mitigate it with P.I.T.A fluid changes I would be walking away completely from the Edge. Are there any other glaring issues with the Edge besides the PTU problem?

Edited September 15, 2016 by bp123

[enigma-2]

Obviously no mechanical part can be expected to last forever but this PTU issue is an outright scam. If not for the ability to mitigate it with P.I.T.A fluid changes I would be walking away completely from the Edge. Are there any other glaring issues with the Edge besides the PTU problem?

I'm not certain if it's actually a scam, there have been a lot of failures, but the overall percentage is not as high as it would seem. I was in for an oil change a couple of months ago and the mechanic told me that he found the seal leaking (wasn't bad, no drops on the garage floor), but it would only get worse over tine. Told him to go ahead and change the seal. Was talking to the service manager after he left and asked if they are finding a lot of PTU failures. Said they had changed some not a lot, and they felt that it was the seal leaking that was the cause. As the fluid slowly leaked out, the fluid remaining was to little to lubricate properly and became overheated; turning to a sludge. At that point all lubrication stops and the unit fails. He thought that if there was no leak, the unit should continue to give good service.

 

Whatever its worth, I had the fluid changed in my PTU last year. They (dealer) used a pump to suck out the old fluid through the fill plug. I had asked to speak with the mechanic as to whether I should do this or not (as its not a Lincoln recommended service requirement). He said he felt it was a very good idea.

 

Think they charged me around $80, mechanic said alot of the cost was in the price of the fluid. (Stuff must retail for $40 a pint or near that. But that's what you pay at a dealer).

 

Course you could always consider just going with a FWD and eliminate the problem altogether. <highfive>

Edited September 15, 2016 by enigma-2

[samirmta]

I am looking at buying a 2015 Ford Edge Sport AWD and I just spent the night reading this thread and researching the PTU issues. This is an incredible thread and I would like to thank all of the people that took the time to contribute too it.

 

I can't find much related to the PTU and 2015/2016 models but I did find a couple of posts that hinted the 2015+ model now has a PTU drain plug from the factory. Can anyone confirm this?

 

Obviously no mechanical part can be expected to last forever but this PTU issue is an outright scam. If not for the ability to mitigate it with P.I.T.A fluid changes I would be walking away completely from the Edge. Are there any other glaring issues with the Edge besides the PTU problem?

Dear bp123,

 

I hope you will successful in choosing your Edge.

 

For the PTU, please have a look on ford parts webpage, try to have the VIN for the Edge you are interested in or search by the model in general. As I had a look on 2015 models AWD, the ecoboost has a drain plug but the others I cannot confirm.

 

http://www.fordparts.com/Commerce/CatalogResults.aspx?y=2015&m=Ford&mo=Edge#Search

 

[bp123]

Thank you for your help samirmta, I'm still new to the being a home mechanic.

 

I'm so use to calling them a power transfer unit after reading all of this wonderful information that I couldn't find it initially but I guess ford refers to them as a power take off. Looks like they completely redesigned it in the 2015 year based on your schematic and the PTO schematic I was able to find under the VIN I'm looking at. It appears they have added a drain plug. Also if you have the hot weather package you get a vent tube and temperature sensor..?

 

I still don't see a service interval in the owners manual though, so I guess the breather tube will just be one more thing to unclog when the oil eventually turns to sludge on the unknowing owner.

 

 

Ford Edge Sport 2015 PTO/PTU schematic:

 

 

Part #12A648;

Engine Coolant Temperature Sensor

4WD 2.7L Dual Over Head Cam 4V DI GT V6 GAS/FFV Less Hot Weather Group Hot Weather Improvement Pack 1

Part #7A246

Transfer Case Breather Tube

4WD 2.7L Dual Over Head Cam 4V DI GT V6 GAS/FFV Less Hot Weather Group Hot Weather Improvement Pack 1

Edited September 15, 2016 by bp123

[bp123]

I'm not certain if it's actually a scam, there have been a lot of failures, but the overall percentage is not as high as it would seem.

Initially I would not have said it was a scam. But in my opinion when a company produces equipment for at least 7 years in a row with a design that is known to fail from the inability to service it, then they charge $1500+ to repair it when it would have lasted indefinitely with a couple of oil changes, I call it a scam. It would be one thing if they changed it in 2008 or 2009 or something but they didn't, they chose to continue producing a flawed design. And now it appears they have finally recognized the issue in 2015 based on the above schematics.

[jlkansascity]

I'm not certain if it's actually a scam, there have been a lot of failures, but the overall percentage is not as high as it would seem. I was in for an oil change a couple of months ago and the mechanic told me that he found the seal leaking (wasn't bad, no drops on the garage floor), but it would only get worse over tine. Told him to go ahead and change the seal. Was talking to the service manager after he left and asked if they are finding a lot of PTU failures. Said they had changed some not a lot, and they felt that it was the seal leaking that was the cause. As the fluid slowly leaked out, the fluid remaining was to little to lubricate properly and became overheated; turning to a sludge. At that point all lubrication stops and the unit fails. He thought that if there was no leak, the unit should continue to give good service.

 

Whatever its worth, I had the fluid changed in my PTU last year. They (dealer) used a pump to suck out the old fluid through the fill plug. I had asked to speak with the mechanic as to whether I should do this or not (as its not a Lincoln recommended service requirement). He said he felt it was a very good idea.

 

Think they charged me around $80, mechanic said alot of the cost was in the price of the fluid. (Stuff must retail for $40 a pint or near that. But that's what you pay at a dealer).

 

Course you could always consider just going with a FWD and eliminate the problem altogether. <highfive>

 

 

I would offer a couple more facts that support the conclusion that it's a scam. By this I mean an avoidable known issue that dealers are profiting from, and which hurts Ford customers.

 

1) Actual FORD DEALERS are making $$$ selling the PTO units on eBAY. They are capitalizing on this known issue. Check it out; they're selling hundreds of them.

 

2) your local Ford dealer may or may not be clueless about this. The ones I have dealt with have been very rigid and their only response is to replace it and pay $1,600. There little to no consistency from Ford to the dealers. One can be great, and the next one can suck. I know some of each.

 

3) dealer responses are inconsistent; I have read and heard about some dealers fixing this as a warranty issue while others are "sucks to be you".

 

4) I've had dealers tell me that it's "impossible" to suction drain and change the fluid (Simi Valley Ford, Simi Valley, CA http://simivalleyford.net/).This is after I have done it a dozen times. After telling them that, the service manage had a "meeting" with the "lead mechanic" and they came back with this next suggestion;

 

5) Dealers I've dealt with have no creative solution, Simi Valley Ford wanted to charge me $460.00 to change the fluid by pulling the unit because "that's what the BOOK says" but denied that it was possible to change with a suction unit. So, I went down the road about 300 feet to a quick change place and had them do it.

 

6) overseas units were shipped with drain plugs. That is documented on this board. So, FORD apparently knew that the unit would not stand the heat or use case in the middle east for example, but it was a calculated shortcut to shortchange US buyers. And, like enigma-2 says, Ford did nothing to change the design which could have easily been done since the unit with a plug exists. http://www.fordedgeforum.com/topic/13533-13m01-middle-east-ptu-extended-warranty/

 

So, Ford could have been a lot better. But on the other hand, we have 163,000 on ours now and it still runs great. Even if we paid 1600 to have it replaced, that's not horrible upkeep for those miles on a 9 year old vehicle. And, we just ordered a 2017 Edge as my wife loves it and I don't want to pay for a new X5 right now. So the saga goes on...

[bp123]

JLK, at least it looks like the 2017 should have a drain plug to make your life easier. Follow the links above and check your engine type and you can like confirm via schematic but I would be surprised if they added it to 2015 models and then took it away.

[jlkansascity]

JLK, at least it looks like the 2017 should have a drain plug to make your life easier. Follow the links above and check your engine type and you can like confirm via schematic but I would be surprised if they added it to 2015 models and then took it away.

 

 

yeah, I see that... I it will be one of the first things I visually verify when we take delivery...

[tgros]

I have a 2015 Edge Titanium AWD with the 3.5L engine. I have about 17,000 miles on it. Before the summer my mechanic (non-Ford) was doing an oil change, and noticed some oil on the outside of the PTU. He wasn't sure where it was coming from, but told me to have Ford check it out. I didn't have time during July and August, so I just got it to the Ford dealer today. They checked it out and told me that they will replace the PTU free of charge, but they will not be able to get it till early October.

 

At least they are replacing it for free without giving me a hard time.

 

[bp123]

Oh boy, the saga definitely continues.

[akirby]

Take off the tin hats. Ford is also having to replace a lot of these under warranty. Only an idiot would purposely do something that costs them a lot of money in repairs, pisses off customers and gets them bad reliability ratings.

 

The more plausible explanation is what Waldo said - it's heat buildup internally due to manufacturing tolerances and if the unit never goes over the heat threshold the fluid lasts the life of the vehicle. If it overheats it's ruined. In that case regular fluid changes would do nothing to prevent 90% of the failures.

 

But if you're rather believe they're doing it on purpose, be my guest.

[bp123]

I hate to start an argument with a Moderator when I'm the new kid on the block but lets say that it is a tolerance issue and the fluid is gold until it overheats. Then that leads me to the question if why is it overheating under normal operating conditions? Ford is still at fault for a bad design right? They need to engineer it so that it withstands standard use. Whether that requires a different air foil design to cool the unit, different fluid to withstand the heat or completely different components; it was still their responsibility. If this were a rare case where a 22 year old was using his AWD edge in an 8 hour rally race and burned his PTU that argument would be valid, but not when its this common among the average users its hard to not start pointing a finger at Ford.

 

I agree, only an idiot would do something that costs them a lot of money in repairs... such as admitting fault and having to repair hundreds of thousands of cars? Corporations have time and time again stepped on consumers to their benefit. Martin Shkreli, Wells Fargo, VW emissions are a few recent ones that come to mind. Ford may not have initially tried to push a product that was crap but sure havn't stepped up to address it!

[akirby]

Of course Ford is still at fault here. I wasn't suggesting otherwise. I was only referring to whether or not Ford requiring regular fluid changes would stop the failures from occurring and I don't think it will. The only sure way to do that would be to have a temp sensor and when it exceeds the safe temp notify the owner to have it changed immediately.

 

As for admitting fault and requiring them to pay for hundreds of thousands of cars - that's ridiculous. A warranty is warranty. Almost every part that fails prematurely on a Ford vehicle is Ford's fault. That doesn't matter. What matters is whether the vehicle is still under warranty or not. Ford isn't refusing warranty claims by saying that owners abused their vehicles. If they were then you would be absolutely right. But as far as I know if you're within the 5 yr/60K mile powertrain warranty Ford is replacing them at no charge.

 

All Ford is doing here is not extending the warranty on these to 100K miles, which I think they should do. Whether it's internal heat buildup or something else it's still a faulty part that fails far too often. And since there doesn't seem to be a good permanent fix I think they should extend the warranty. Ford extended the warranty on the Focus tranny and TCM to 100K miles and they've done the same thing on other parts before.

 

But to say that they're leaving a faulty part in service on purpose just to generate revenue for the dealers while killing their quality ratings and increasing their warranty costs at the same time is absolutely ridiculous. If there was an easy fix they would have already done it because it would save them money in the long run.

[bp123]

Fair enough. It looks like the 2015 had an option for a temperature sensor, I wonder if it is for the exact function you stated. Hope the one I'm looking at has it!

[akirby]

What I see happening a lot more often is there is a problem with a part that they can't fix easily or quickly so in some cases where a recall is not required they just leave the old part in until it gets redesigned. But if they're going to do that I think they should at least extend the warranty to 100K.

 

The real solution is to do a better job of engineering and testing. I think they cut too many experienced engineers during the economic crisis and they haven't replaced that intellectual property yet.

[Kleber Gomes]

Actually, I'm really worried with this potential problem with PTU. Here in Brazil we have a site where people can complain in case of issues related to warranty and/or quality, and there are many complains related with PTU. Additionally, here the warranty from Ford is only of 3 years and not possibility at all of extended warranty for customer before 16/17.

 

I have contacted many dealers asking for the oil replacement and all of them give me the usual answer that it is not recommended to change oil by Ford, and that they don't do it. many of them also told me that this is a very rare problem. I just found 1 dealer that accepted to replace after a long discussion and after talking directly with the mechanical chief however they just offered me to remove the PTU for that. Their proposal is to keep the car during 02 days and to charge me > 450 USD just for that. (I'm not allowed to see them working)

 

From people that had the problem, Ford was asking > 3.000 USD to replace the PTU.

 

Since August the warranty on my 2013 AWD is over, with 43k Km by now. Nothing unusual so far, but I'm really really worried as in case of problems the costs may be dramatically high.

[jlkansascity]

Actually, I'm really worried with this potential problem with PTU. Here in Brazil we have a site where people can complain in case of issues related to warranty and/or quality, and there are many complains related with PTU. Additionally, here the warranty from Ford is only of 3 years and not possibility at all of extended warranty for customer before 16/17.

 

I have contacted many dealers asking for the oil replacement and all of them give me the usual answer that it is not recommended to change oil by Ford, and that they don't do it. many of them also told me that this is a very rare problem. I just found 1 dealer that accepted to replace after a long discussion and after talking directly with the mechanical chief however they just offered me to remove the PTU for that. Their proposal is to keep the car during 02 days and to charge me > 450 USD just for that. (I'm not allowed to see them working)

 

From people that had the problem, Ford was asking > 3.000 USD to replace the PTU.

 

Since August the warranty on my 2013 AWD is over, with 43k Km by now. Nothing unusual so far, but I'm really really worried as in case of problems the costs may be dramatically high.

 

Kleber; if I were in your shoes, I would search high and low trying to find a mechanic who can do the suction oil change approach to suction out the old oil and replace it. If this is done early enough and regularly enough, it's a huge help.

 

I have run my Edge about 1.5 years AFTER Ford wanted to charge me $1600.00 USD to replace it. I just changed the oil a LOT (every week, then every month, now ever 3 months) and I got 20k more miles on it. I have about 30 more days to go and then we're getting a new vehicle. The 450 USD they wanted to charge for two days sounds like it was the "the book says to pull the PTU to change the oil" story that I have got here from some dealers as well.

[Kleber Gomes]

Probably it makes no sense, but one of the guys that had problems with AWD suggested that in order to do not have such problem to replace this part: PART NUMBER S20068 (Throttle Body)

 

Unfortunately through the site it is not possible to get any contact of the person to further ask him what exactly he had in mind.

 

This code is apparently not from a Ford part. Any idea on how this part could fit in Ford's AWD system to eventually prevent or reduce chances of failure. As I'm not a mechanic I couldn't figure out if this could help anyway or if the guy was wrongly advised.

 

Apparently there's a page with some details of the part:

http://www.autopartsandstuff.com/standard-s20068-electronicthrottlebody.aspx

[jlkansascity]

Probably it makes no sense, but one of the guys that had problems with AWD suggested that in order to do not have such problem to replace this part: PART NUMBER S20068 (Throttle Body)

 

Unfortunately through the site it is not possible to get any contact of the person to further ask him what exactly he had in mind.

 

This code is apparently not from a Ford part. Any idea on how this part could fit in Ford's AWD system to eventually prevent or reduce chances of failure. As I'm not a mechanic I couldn't figure out if this could help anyway or if the guy was wrongly advised.

 

Apparently there's a page with some details of the part:

http://www.autopartsandstuff.com/standard-s20068-electronicthrottlebody.as

 

 

the odds of that part being related are extremely extremely unlikely. I would say zero percent chance. The throttle body is for fuel delivery on the intake of the engine and has nothing to do with a transfer case.

[Kleber Gomes]

Have just called local Ford (customer relationship) about the PTU oil replacement.

 

In the manual (revisions) they say that dealers always check the level of oil, and complete it if something is missing ... then I asked how do they check the level of that oil, given there isn't any mechanism for that and that dealers don't remove the PTU for this purpose. The answer: "to check the level of oil" = check for apparent leakages. If there's no leakage, the oil level is ok. :-)

 

Then I argued that once you have a leakage then you already have a problem, so when Ford will remove the PTU they will probably find a problem that will require me to replace the full PTU, of course that at my expenses. And my claim was exactly to have a preventive action to avoid getting to this point ....

 

Of course, the standard answer ... that they always check for leakages in the revisions, and if a leakage is detected early this will not damage the PTU and that I have to continue following the planned revisions with their dealers, bla bla bla (I also asked if in case of following all these instructions, and having a problem with PTU if Ford would cover them ... of course they will not).

 

It is a good car, but I'm really upset with Ford relationship. Even when customers want to be pro-active to avoid problems you're really left with no options.