Money MD Auto

[JennyPescud]

What does Transmission Limited Function indicate what is wrong? MONDEO MD auto

[AlanD]

I'd suggest you repost in the Mondeo Sub Forum with a lot more detail to elicit some answers. Things like fuel type, and trim level (titanium, trend etc) so members can identify the transmission type - Mondeos have had a number of "auto" type transmissions - but I'm usure if variations were fitted across the MD (Read Mk 5) build vehicles. Has the car shown an error code? If so that information will be quite useful and if the way the car behaves when driving has changed, then describe that as well. How many km have been covered and (this is very important) has the transmission been serviced at the proper intervals? If you do not know then assume it has not and get it serviced as soon as possible.

Cheers

[JennyPescud]

Thanks Alan. It is a DCT transmission and the build date is 12/2016 The message that come up says "Transmission Limited Function refer Manual" The car has done 102,000 kilometres and I've just had the Transmission oil changed by Ultra Tune Ellenbrook WA. I think I may have found the problem. I was charged for 4 litres of DCT fluid, but the Transmission takes 6 litres of DCT Fluid. I am going out to Ultra Tune for when they open this morning.

[JennyPescud]

Update took my Mondeo back to Ultra Tune. Using their scan tool "Stop solenoid valve stuck " come up. They've deleted the message and checked oil levels Mechanic said he doesn't know what the message means. Keep driving and if message come up again return the car. About the 4 litre of oil they said 6 litres is on when a transmission is rebuilt. This means my transmission still has 2 litres of dirty oil in it.

[AlanD]

Hi Jenny(?). If you are not aware DCT stands for Dual Clutch Transmission and I would be worried about a mechanic who

1. claimed not to know what the message meant - and then
2. Only requires 4 litres of oil when changing??.

Clearly point 2 is of concern for three reasons:

1. I have never seen a gear box either manual or automatic which did not drain the complete volume of fluid when (if) replacement was necessary (But this does not mean they do not exist) and 2. the DCT transmission is a double shaft manual which uses automatic electric control if you are not using the paddle shifters on the steering wheel. The fluid in a DCT really ought to be fully drained and replaced - in my opinion. The third reason is that if the transmission was fully drained and then filled with 4 litres then it is operating with only 2/3 of the capacity required.

My maintenance booklet shows 6 litres being the "Refill" capacity and the "B" service extras over and above the "A" service requirements clearly states "Replace" not "Top up". "B" services occur every 60,000 km or 4 year intervals whichever occurs first.

If a Moderator reads this I'd offer the thread ought to be shifted to the "Mondeo" sub forum. I'll assume in the interests of speed "Jenny" will be OK with this. That way "Jenny" might get some advice which is more relevant than mine.

Cheers

[Mechan1k]

Have moved this to the Mondeo sub-Forum where this should get the correct audience.

[JennyPescud]

Thank you for your advice Alan and help.

[goz007]

I'm getting my transmission serviced tomorrow in a reputable automatic transmission shop, I'll advise tomorrow how much oil is used....

[JennyPescud]

Thank you Goz007

[thebigd]

My last two transmission services have been done by Ford dealers in Brisbane.
On both occasions I have supplied my own oil (and filter).
7 x 1 quart (946ml) bottles of Driven DCT.
Both times there was around half a bottle left for me in the boot.
The MD clearly needs a little over six liters if it's serviced properly.

[JennyPescud]

Thank you thebigd. This confirms my suspicions about the service I got.

[AlanM]

This is amazing. I just bought an MD very cheap at the auctions which had just had a transmission service done at MyCar auto. It had the "Transmission limited function" lit up too, and in fact couldn't be driven, I had to tow it.

I discovered the transmission only had a little over three litres of oil in it. (They had charged for the full 6.2 litres though.)

There's a procedure to changing the transmission oil in these. It's a bit of a rigmarole. You can find videos on YouTube, but basically you fill it till oil runs out a level hole, refit the bungs, start the car, go through all the gears a few times, shut down the car, take out the level bung, some oil will drain out, you have to wait until it stops, then add more oil until it starts to run out again. Then it's full.

There are two chambers in these transmissions, the front has the pump and valve body, the rear has the actual gearbox. The front chamber is higher than the rear and they are separated by a weir. You fill via the front chamber which overflows into the rear, where the level drain is.

What happens is when you drain the oil, it (mostly) emptys out the valve body and all the passages too. When you refill it, it fills both chambers but not the valve body etc. So you have to run it through the gears. Which then means the front chamber isn't properly filled until you top it up again.

Doing it properly takes a while, which is probably why they so often don't. You have to remove the undertray obviously, but also the left front wheel and the inner mudguard.

Anyway, as said above, they take a bit more than six litres. But even if you put six litres in without going through the process, you'd end up with an overfilled rear chamber and an underfilled front one. And possibly a "Transmission limited function" message.

[AlanM]

Originally Posted by JennyPescud

Update took my Mondeo back to Ultra Tune. Using their scan tool "Stop solenoid valve stuck " come up. They've deleted the message and checked oil levels Mechanic said he doesn't know what the message means. Keep driving and if message come up again return the car. About the 4 litre of oil they said 6 litres is on when a transmission is rebuilt. This means my transmission still has 2 litres of dirty oil in it.

The reason the solenoid stuck message has come up is because basically the valve body doesn't have enough oil in it to maintain hydraulic pressure.

[JennyPescud]

Thank you Alan M.
It appears that these are not a straight forward transmission to service. It makes one wonder why workshops take on these services without having done any training on them.

[AlanM]

Originally Posted by JennyPescud

Thank you Alan M.
It appears that these are not a straight forward transmission to service. It makes one wonder why workshops take on these services without having done any training on them.

I guess they don't know? A transmission oil change sounds pretty straightforward, right? And it is reasonably straightforward once you know the process.

What's not acceptable IMO is when the car is taken back immediately after with a fault code, and they don't bother to investigate whether they might have done something wrong. And even worse, tell you to just driving which could potentially cause actual damage. (Not saying that I think you would have damaged it.)

[JennyPescud]

Totally agree with you Alan M. Thanks again.

[AlanM]

Originally Posted by JennyPescud

What does Transmission Limited Function indicate what is wrong? MONDEO MD auto

On the MD quite a few things can cause the "Transmission limited function" message. Most of them will be transmission related, obviously.

But there's one I've seen which was due to a failed cooling water pump in the engine! That's something to be aware of too, from about 160,000 km up, it's possible for the coolant pump impeller to separate from the shaft. It can stop pumping coolant altogether!

Obviously the engine will overheat quite quickly if this happens. But the temperature guage can be indicating cold!

From my understanding there seems to be more than one coolant temperature sensor.

The sensor connected to the temperature gauge is in the downstream part of the thermostat housing. If there's no coolant circulation, the hot coolant doesn't actually get to that sensor. Luckily the Power train Control Module gets temperature data from another sensor and will set off the high coolant temperature alarm and put the engine into limp mode. All while the temperature gauge is showing a cold engine!

And the discrepancy between these two temperatures will trigger a bad PCM data alarm in the transmission control module, and put it into limited function mode!

Modern technology is great eh?

[JennyPescud]

Thanks again Alan . Modern technology Alan is why it is necessary for us to put faith in Mechanical Workshops. It is obvious that many workshops do not update the skills of their Mechanics/Technicians. Yet they charge top price for their services and rely on their clients not having knowledge of how their cars work. This episode for me has been a lesson to ask more questions of the people working on our cars.

[goz007]

Hello , Jenny just picked up the car from my mates workshop(he's a transmission builder & I'm a diesel mechanic), he also stated as previously posted yes they are a time consuming job to do with with the 2 chambers inside the gearbox, he also said it will take between 6 & 7 ltrs to service it correctly.

[JennyPescud]

Thank you goz007. It looks like I'll have to get it serviced again by a specialist.

[AlanD]

Hi Jenny,

I'm wondering if your invoice from the service you have had done specified the brand and type of fluid that they put into the transmission? If it does and you provide that information here then contributors may be able to advise if that fluid meets the transmission specification requirements. Indeed a bit of "Googleing" could well provide the answer.

If the fluid is appropriate it may be that it will only be necessary to add the "missing" two plus litres of the same fluid.

If this is the "Fix" it's going to save you a lot of cash because the fluid is very expensive. I was charged in excess of $70 per litre when our transmission was serviced as part of the 60,000 km service.

If the information isn't on the invoice I would not hesitate to ask the servicing agent for that information.

Assuming you are using the car, is it behaving in an abnormal manner in any way?

Cheers

[whitelion65]

Have a look at this thread;

https://fordforums.com.au/showthread...hlight=Gearbox

Has oil options, and I think a video of the oil change. Good to look at to understand, if nothing else.

My MC has over 200,000km, and uses Fuchs Titan DCT fluid.

Note that there is an internal filter that must be changed also.

Good luck ��

[JennyPescud]

Thank you Alan D andwhitelion65,
The oil used at my request is Penrite Fully Synthetic DCT Fluid.
My transmission has an external oil filter. It is a MD model

[AlanM]

Originally Posted by AlanD

Hi Jenny,

I'm wondering if your invoice from the service you have had done specified the brand and type of fluid that they put into the transmission? If it does and you provide that information here then contributors may be able to advise if that fluid meets the transmission specification requirements. Indeed a bit of "Googleing" could well provide the answer.

If the fluid is appropriate it may be that it will only be necessary to add the "missing" two plus litres of the same fluid.

If this is the "Fix" it's going to save you a lot of cash because the fluid is very expensive. I was charged in excess of $70 per litre when our transmission was serviced as part of the 60,000 km service.

If the information isn't on the invoice I would not hesitate to ask the servicing agent for that information.

Assuming you are using the car, is it behaving in an abnormal manner in any way?

Cheers

I've had good results with the Nulon DCT fluid. It's available in 1 litre packs from supercheap, generally around $25 ish.

I bought mine in a 20 litre container, $420 delivered.

[JennyPescud]

Thank you everyone. I had my transmission re serviced at Midway Ford in Midland WA. All is good now. Transmission wasn't filled properly, transmission filter was clean and fault codes hadn't been deleted properly. Thank you all for your support.
Cheers
Jenny Pescud

[AlanM]

Originally Posted by JennyPescud

Thank you everyone. I had my transmission re serviced at Midway Ford in Midland WA. All is good now. Transmission wasn't filled properly, transmission filter was clean and fault codes hadn't been deleted properly. Thank you all for your support.
Cheers
Jenny Pescud

That's good news. It's also good to learn that at least one Ford dealer knows how to service one of these transmissions.