1999 Ford Expedition v8 4.6L Oil suggestions

[OVERKILL]

Be mindful of that transmission fluid....

My mom's 99 Ford Expedition went through 2 transmissions and the third was going out when it finally had to put put of service for another too expensive of a repair...

The motors on those Ford's were actually quite good.

Transmissions... Not so good.

Depends on the trans. If you got the 5.4L with the tow package it was backed by the excellent 4R100. But, if you got the 4.6L, you got the 4R70W (or 4R75W, can't recall which), which was a good trans for the Panther cars and more lighter duty applications but would not hold up as well under truck/heavy SUV use particularly in severe service.

That said, there are plenty of F-150's from that era with the 4R70W/4R75W driving around on their original trans. Your later comment, a Jasper rebuilt, that kinda says it all. You should look up mrsilv04's posts on his experience with Jasper reman engines, it's quite the saga, I think he's on #4?

 

[OVERKILL]

Hello all was wondering what the best choice of oil for my vehicle would be. I currently use pennzoil high mileage 5W-20. It has over 230K miles on it. I change the oil every 4 to 5 months since I don't usually travel that often per week. Wanted to know your thought on this and if there was a better oil to use in the vehicle. Also what is the best filter for it. Thanks!View attachment 31486

The 4.6L is probably going to outlast the rest of that vehicle regardless of what you put in the pan. If it hasn't had chain/guide issues by now, like our 5.4L's, it probably isn't going to. My parents are still on their original chain/guides, as is our old 5.4L (we had a 2002 Expedition) that's still driving around, original powertrain.

My oil/filter combo of choice was M1 AFE 0w-30 with a synthetic glass media filter. I played with a number of different filters from AMSOIL, Fleetguard...etc but making the choice now it would just be the FRAM Ultra, given its availability and cost. As others have noted, the modulars originally spec'd 5w-30, so a lot of people feel more comfortable running an xW-30 in them. That said, I doubt there have been any in the way of durability concerns for those running 5w-20. Ford obviously had a lot of margin in the design.

 

[jagdriver727]

Well... My mom and step father would say that the 99 Ford Expedition transmission was not very good... Being it went out quite early in terms of mileage. The replacement was a Jasper transmission... Which was actually worse. A 75k mile warranty that was used.

Ford's, GM, Dodge did not have good automatic transmissions on average throughout the 80s into and through the 90s....

The 96 Toyota Avalon has it's orginal transmission with 320,000+ miles.... Never opened. Still runs just fine. Toyota, Honda and Nissan on average had much better transmissions in those vehicles throughout that same time frame. Again.... On the average... I still routinely see mid to late 90s Toyotas, and Hondas still on the road that are 20-25 years old. Much, much, much more often than any American vehicle from that same time frame. Why?? Because the vast majority of American vehicles from that time had big transmission issues...

Not disagreeing with you, just explaining my take on it.

The original transmission in your mom’s expedition most likely failed from one of the issues I mentioned earlier. As for the Jasper replacement, that should speak for itself, I can’t blame Ford for that.

As for OP’s transmission, it’s over 230k at this point, if it had any of those faults it would have been an issue a long time ago. He shouldn’t have much to worry about there.

No doubt there were a lot of really bad automatic transmissions coming from the big 3 in that era. There were also some really good ones.

 

[Black Thunder]

That's a nice clean 99!

Big fan of the 2v 4.6 and 5.4. I mainly run any 5w30 in them, they don't seem to be very picky on what brand. I suppose a high mileage oil couldn't hurt.