If they made a pan for the Hybrids I'd buy one in a heartbeat. Had a Pacific Performance Engineering pan in the Ranger and doing a D&F was kids play.
Last edited by a moderator:
Ford 10R80 Fluid
- Thread starter TacoFergie
- Start date
My father in law has a Powerboost and I love it. I was looking for a 23 Powerboost Lariat or higher trim (just for 4wd Auto) for nearly 3 months this summer. Couldn’t find one within 4hrs of me that had less than 50k miles, seemed like all of them were used as farm trucks. I like my 23 Lariat 3.5 ecoboost just fine though, might actually better in the long run since I plan on keeping it for about 8-10 years.
Last edited by a moderator:
I don't often crawl up here from the basement, but the 3-5 shift is ALMOST (not always, almost always) a programming issue. I been there, I done that with 2 10r80's and I'm quite thankful the Ranger I just bought has the 10r60 in it. Up until fairly recently, they ran 10r80's also. People have known about this since circa 2018, throwing parts at it usually does not work. Or it works for a little while.
It can be fixed for almost nothing. For a couple of years I would drag out my laptop and use FORScan to reset the adaptive learning tables whenever I got tired of babying the stupid thing through 3-5 shifts. It would help for a bit, and in a week go back to 3----------PFFFFFTTTT-----5 shifts.
Eventually I gave up on that. Then one bright sunshiny day a few months back I drag out the laptop to clear a code. While in there poking around, I saw a quikie way to completely turn off the adaptive learning tables. Did a few minutes research on the ever so trustworthy internet and turned them completely off after I reset them.
Never had a wonky 3-5 shift again. and i don't remember if I had any ugly downshifts afterwards but I had a few ugly ones before I turned them off for sure. Several 8-3or4 or even 9-3or4 shifts.
the f150 forum can teach you much about forscan. I don't know if posting a direct link to it would break any rules so you'll have to google something like f150 forum forscan livinitup
livinitup is gracious enough to manage the forscan sheets, that's his forum name. Great dude. Sells cool lariat+ clusters you can drop in your dash if you have a trim below lariat.
(on a side note I got a bit antsy after I reset and turned them off, so I went back in, turned them on, drove it for 1 day with them on, then turned them off. I am not a pro on this but rumor has it that part of adaptive learning takes wear into its learning.... and then I turned them back off - just in case wear...)
It can be fixed for almost nothing. For a couple of years I would drag out my laptop and use FORScan to reset the adaptive learning tables whenever I got tired of babying the stupid thing through 3-5 shifts. It would help for a bit, and in a week go back to 3----------PFFFFFTTTT-----5 shifts.
Eventually I gave up on that. Then one bright sunshiny day a few months back I drag out the laptop to clear a code. While in there poking around, I saw a quikie way to completely turn off the adaptive learning tables. Did a few minutes research on the ever so trustworthy internet and turned them completely off after I reset them.
Never had a wonky 3-5 shift again. and i don't remember if I had any ugly downshifts afterwards but I had a few ugly ones before I turned them off for sure. Several 8-3or4 or even 9-3or4 shifts.
the f150 forum can teach you much about forscan. I don't know if posting a direct link to it would break any rules so you'll have to google something like f150 forum forscan livinitup
livinitup is gracious enough to manage the forscan sheets, that's his forum name. Great dude. Sells cool lariat+ clusters you can drop in your dash if you have a trim below lariat.
(on a side note I got a bit antsy after I reset and turned them off, so I went back in, turned them on, drove it for 1 day with them on, then turned them off. I am not a pro on this but rumor has it that part of adaptive learning takes wear into its learning.... and then I turned them back off - just in case wear...)
I don't think I would ever turn off adaptive learning on a newer transmission. It is there for exactly what you describe, tracking and adjusting to wear over the long term. The main issue is that the valves in the valve body are being slowed down, either by wear, or sticking from contaminants. Turning off the adaptives is just masking the problem with whatever the default strategy is. The only real fix is either replacing the valve body or replacing the valves. That's why I prefer the 'liquid fix' of using the Lubegard. It seems to work to free the valves up to where they function correctly and you can leave the adaptives on doing what they're supposed to do. If/when it happens to not work, which it certainly isn't always a 100% cure, then you can go forward with the next steps, but eventually, all roads lead to fixing hard parts.
Maybe @clinebarger can give us an opinion on turning off adaptive learning on the 10X boxes.
Last edited:
I plan on getting Forscan soon to make a few other changes and it's a valuable diag tool for later on in life. Increasing the SOC for the battery monitor is the first thing I'm going to change. I really want to see if I can get the glare free headlights enabled. I have a 23 Lariat 502A with the LED projectors and bending headlights. I hate auto high beams on every vehicle I've driven, but glare-free sounds pretty awesome. I do wished there was a bit better organization on the F150 sites like BITOG has, one that's specifically for Forscan mods would be great.
I have looked at the F150 Forum and 14th Gen forum a little bit, some pretty valuable info on those for sure. But those are blocked on my work computer unfortunately, which is odd since BITOG works fine. Ironically I have more time during brief intermissions at work to look at BITOG than I do outside of work.
I have read that people have turned off adaptive learning and it improved overall function. Like @ctechbob noted, I don't know if it's good long term? I haven't seen long term reviews of people with adaptive learning off, but I also haven't looked into it much at all. Though I do fully agree that it's all in the programming. I've heard many people praise tunes fixing many of the 10R80 quirks. I don't know if tuners are turning off adaptive tables or simply just adjusting pressures and shift timing? I would like to tune it though. Likely Livernois as it seems like worked with Ford on the Ford Performance tune that's warrantied so I would guess they have some inside info from Ford engineers that they could use to make their tunes safer. At least I presume they did since the device used is the same as Livernois.
I agree, the KISS concept often works just fine. If you do go with LG, adding red is a good choice. I know there are highly respected members here who feel as though Platinum can cause issues. I will say to that; maybe it "could". I have at least of 200k miles (probably more) of Platinum usage and have never had an issue; always improved shifting only. If any doubt or concern though; I would stick to the Red.
I’m going to have to look into LG some more. I did a quick search yesterday and it seems the F150 and Ranger crowds heavily favor Platinum over Red. I haven’t found any indication that either product hurts performance or longevity in any way for whatever that’s worth. But it does seem like people who try it are also typically ones who maintain their fluids more often. So did the chicken or the egg come first??? Hmmm
Also, I doubt the previous owner added anything. But if they did add Platinum for instance, would adding 5oz of Red (or vice versa) during a drain and fill affect anything?
Adding Red at 1oz/qt if there was already Platinum in there is no issue.
I'm still learning the 10 speed as are most builders right now far as tuning goes.
Any tips that you might have besides frequent drain and fills? Mine is a 23, from what I have read has the updated CDF drum. Not sure if there were other changes made during that update?
Using Amsoil's newish ATF ULV in my GM 10L80. Smooth as butter below zero weather temps in MN.
The valve bodies wear pretty fast, A kit like a Sonnax Zip Kit or Next Gen kit will allow for extended life of the valve body castings & internal components like the Rotating Shell aka the Trash Can.
Debris builds up in the valve body that can only be removed upon disassembly.
Thank you!! That Sonnax Zip Kit seems like the better budget friendly option. I can’t find much for reviews on either Sonnax or Next Gen which always seems to make me a bit leery.
What surprises me is how many people have had a tune that makes it shift way better and seemingly more reliable. I’m not saying the hard parts aren’t an issue, but part of me wonders how much is simply self induced software driven issues.
I also have doubts about software being a long term fix, when there are SO MANY HARDWARE PROBLEMS.
Low quality materials, poor design, poor implementation…
But are the hardware problems exacerbated by software problems? Look at 4L80’s band clutch issues being improved by increased line pressure.
I wonder if some 10R80 issues are simply due to line pressure, certain skip shifting and possibly early torque converter lockup. All of which can be changed with programming. For instance, I notice when mine shifts into 3rd under normal acceleration, that it seems to shift twice. From what I gather, it shifts into third and then locks the converter very shortly after the shift.
That is a carryover behavior from the 6r80 that I have. The 6r80 effectively doubles 3rd-6th gears.
For those with the 3-5 skip issue, why not just enable sport mode, which not only forces the trans to hit every gear, holding the RPMs higher and requiring less boost has nearly always led to better in-town MPG on my truck than leaving it in normal.
That is one thing the Hybrid doesn't do. It runs up through every gear every time. It never spends much time in 2nd, but it does go through it. Better? Worse? Who knows.
Lol
The wear issue is what originally led me to look into the LG Platinum. (The wear issue that is)
LG had an article where they had done some testing that showed better wear resistance with ULV fluid specifically.
Last I looked, the article is still online, but the graphs didn't survive a webpage reformat.
This is the article:
https://lubegard.com/viscosity-in-depth-review/
It was mainly about viscosity, but they discuss wear as well.
Is it as good as a Nextgen valve body or Sonnax parts? I doubt it. But I do believe there is real value in it, especially for the person that doesn't want to tear into their trans. I've seen and heard from enough people that have used it in the Ranger 10R80's that I kept on using it in my 2025 F150 even though off the lot it was apparent that Ford had done at least a little work behind the scenes to improve the trans.
--Edit--
I went and looked again. The images didn't survive because someone really screwed up their URL:
https://lubegard.com/https://lubegard.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image004.gif <----that is not going to work.....
https://lubegard.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/image004.gif <-- This one will though
My issue with sport mode is when cruising at 50ish mph is that it wants to sit at 2600-2700rpm. Which happens to be a decent amount of my driving. While I know it won’t cause any issues, it’s just kind of annoying. As soon as I crest 52mph or so, it will upshift and be in the lower 2000rpm range. I have the 3.55 rear end with 275/60r20 (33” od) tires, not sure if yours differs?
