I can't imagine glitter in fluid being a normal characteristic, but sure.
Is my Explorer PTU on its way out?
- Thread starter Klutch9
- Start date
Like he stated in a prior post, there’s nothing he can/will do anyway. This post is moot. That’s my point lol.
Again, I fail to see what else I can/will do. It’s not tires (see prior post), and the PTU is actively shedding metal at a high rate and making noise. Very short OCIs also are not helping. What am I missing?
In my case, the bearings failed. They were easy to replace, cost me about $100 in quality parts, YMMV. If let go too long, the gears tear themselves up. I think I replaced the bearings at 69K miles. Now have 230K.
I've seen more bad bearings in the last 10 years than I did in the 40 years previous.
Metallurgy and manufacturing skills and knowledge have been lost or deliberately discarded on the road to low cost.
my PTU looks like that. I changed the oil, changed the oil again in 5K and every 20k after. Still kicking.
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2022
- Messages
- 202
It’s actually not normal to see visible metal glitters in the fluid. You should have some metal on the drain or fill plug magnet, but seeing metal in the fluid is not normal. You need to shorten the fluid change interval, or make sure the first few fluid changes get done very early.
That first fluid change at 45k miles is a problem.
Any good mechanic will tell you to change Ford PTU fluid every 30k miles or less. Of course the very first drain and fill should be done very early at 5k-10k miles, just to get some of the break in metal out, maybe even the first 2 or 3 changes, and then maintain a 25k-30k mile fluid change interval.
People can’t treat these PTU’s like it’s a 4wd truck Transfercase. Fluid capacity is a big issue, and also the location of the PTU is a problem on a lot of these domestic fwd based awd cars.
My 2010 Ford Taurus SHO non performance pack has the PTU without the drain plug, only a fill plug, and i always get a fluid change every 20k-25k miles. The cars got 118k miles now. I do not see any metal glitter in the fluid. I just use motorcraft 75w140, nothing boutique or special. I believe the first change I got done was at 8k miles, back in 2010. There’s so many issues with ford ptu’s it doesn’t even seem real sometimes, and I know because I work at a ford parts department. We get customer pay PTU’s all the time. Very rare they actually fail during warranty. And ford doesn’t suggest PTU fluid changes for some reason. Gotta be careful with these “lifetime fluid” claims.
That first fluid change at 45k miles is a problem.
Any good mechanic will tell you to change Ford PTU fluid every 30k miles or less. Of course the very first drain and fill should be done very early at 5k-10k miles, just to get some of the break in metal out, maybe even the first 2 or 3 changes, and then maintain a 25k-30k mile fluid change interval.
People can’t treat these PTU’s like it’s a 4wd truck Transfercase. Fluid capacity is a big issue, and also the location of the PTU is a problem on a lot of these domestic fwd based awd cars.
My 2010 Ford Taurus SHO non performance pack has the PTU without the drain plug, only a fill plug, and i always get a fluid change every 20k-25k miles. The cars got 118k miles now. I do not see any metal glitter in the fluid. I just use motorcraft 75w140, nothing boutique or special. I believe the first change I got done was at 8k miles, back in 2010. There’s so many issues with ford ptu’s it doesn’t even seem real sometimes, and I know because I work at a ford parts department. We get customer pay PTU’s all the time. Very rare they actually fail during warranty. And ford doesn’t suggest PTU fluid changes for some reason. Gotta be careful with these “lifetime fluid” claims.
