Just joined (HELP) I think I have a bad tranny!

[Yogi Dave]

Love the forum! This is a great thing to have, especially for us newbies. My very first car was a '66 T-Bird...best (and coolest) car I've ever owned. So when the opportunity presented itself to purchase an '02 I jumped on it. After driving it for a week my wife & I were out for a ride when it decided it didn't want to shift (I think it was fro D3->D4?)...and I noticed the gear display on the dash no longer told me what gear I was in and instead only showed a code "E". Driving around at 3-4,000 RPM didn't seem like a good thing to do so I scheduled in at the Ford dealership (even though it only happened that one day). This morning they called me and told me they think I either need a new tranny or a rebuild...to the tune of around $1,800!! Yikes! The rep told me they have had several of these that they have had to rebuild and Ford knows about the problem and actually has a rebuild kit for the dealerships for when this happens. Has anyone out there heard of this and/or experienced it themselves? Are there any alternatives? Are there aftermarkets, or will rebuilt trannies from other Ford models work? HELP?! Thanks.

 

[tbird]

Love the forum! This is a great thing to have, especially for us newbies.

Welcome! We are on facebook too http://fb.com/thunderbirdforum and Twitter http://twitter.com/thunderbirding

 

[George]

Dave:
Several owners have had the E problem but I believe they were mostly on 2003 models. However, none of them, as I recall, needed a new tranny.

If you need more info, you have my email address

I just did a search, above, on "Dreaded E and got many threads. Here's just two:

http://forums.thunderbirdforum.com/showthread~t~3827~highlight~Dreaded+problem.htm
http://forums.thunderbirdforum.com/showthread~t~3830~highlight~Dreaded.htm

Do your homework and you won't need a tranny....If you want, you can STILL get a 4 year ext warranty on a 2002 from Ford. Let me know