Howdy,

Planning out a 60k service on my '22 F150 with the 10R80 transmission. Was going to service front and rear diffs, transfer case, and transmission oil/filter replaced as preventative maintenance along with standard oil and air filter change. My question is if anyone has any experience with servicing one of these transmissions. Debating on having a shop other than the dealer do this as it seems like a pretty intense process just to drain and fill with a new filter. I'd rather steer clear of a "flush" if possible, which I'm pretty sure is what the dealer does.

Trying to keep this truck as long as I can, just trying to evaluate the risk of possibly nuking a transmission outside of warranty. I've serviced diffs before, but a transmission is new territory for me.

Thanks,

I would check YouTube for a rundown on it. Is it a transmission with a dipstick? If so get an oil extractor and it's not crazy. I'm in the camp generally with trans of drop the pan, change the filter, top it off. I know it's not a 100% fluid change but way better than what most people do, if you are super worried about it you can extract and fill again after a couple hundred miles and get a higher% fresh fluid.

They definitely design these to not be easily serviceable. No dipstick up top, but there is a "dipstick" down low next to the Cat/exhaust that will be nice and toasty when checking the fluid at proper operating temp. And to make it worse, the "dipstick" is a universal part with different lines denoting the proper level for different vehicle applications, exactly what you want to try reading through bifocals holding the burn on your arm, upside down on your back.

This is all I remember from my past research, and then I never ended up buying a truck with this trans so I have no first hand knowledge. I believe, like most others, there is no drain plug, so you have to drop the pan and make a mess, but I do not recall if dropping the pan is a straight shot, or requires tweaking in directions, prying on exhaust crossovers with a long pry bar, etc. like many others. Usually stuff is too tightly packaged to allow you to just drop it straight down, so even if you drain some of the fluid off by lowering a corner first, there is no way to do the job without creating a huge mess.

My level of trust with most shops tells me very few would actually do this job right, but maybe I am a distrusting jerk. I expect some shops will charge you all the extra labor to do it right, and then when you aren't present they'll just do a flush, and won't bother to actually check the level correctly either.

Had this transmission serviced earlier this week on my '20 F150, 2WD. $636 for fluid and filter at an independent transmission shop. All quotes were around $700. As another poster said and the techs working on mine confirmed…it is not service-friendly.

ETX14.16 said:

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Had this transmission serviced earlier this week on my '20 F150, 2WD. $636 for fluid and filter at an independent transmission shop. All quotes were around $700. As another poster said and the techs working on mine confirmed…it is not service-friendly.

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Yikes! What mileage for the first service?

Bought the truck used with 70,000 miles on it. Have about 92,000 on it now and this was the first service aside from oil changes.

I'm big on 30-45K drain and fills on these.

gravitartx said:

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Howdy,

Planning out a 60k service on my '22 F150 with the 10R80 transmission. Was going to service front and rear diffs, transfer case, and transmission oil/filter replaced as preventative maintenance along with standard oil and air filter change. My question is if anyone has any experience with servicing one of these transmissions. Debating on having a shop other than the dealer do this as it seems like a pretty intense process just to drain and fill with a new filter. I'd rather steer clear of a "flush" if possible, which I'm pretty sure is what the dealer does.

Trying to keep this truck as long as I can, just trying to evaluate the risk of possibly nuking a transmission outside of warranty. I've serviced diffs before, but a transmission is new territory for me.

Thanks,

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At 60K I wouldn't drop the pan for a filter. Just extract the oil in the pan with a hand pump and refill. Drive for a couple hundred miles then do it again.

It's about 3 qts in the pan. 6 qts is about $50 and it takes ~15-20 min to replace the 3 qts.

The hand pump will com in handy for the fluid change on the TC and diffs as well.

I changed the filter at 160K on the Expy and 120K on the F150. Granted they are 6r80's and not 10r80's, but the filter life should be the same.

The pan drop and filter change add an hour to the process, but you still only get ~3-4 qts out of it, so you will have to drive it some then do the extraction again.

Other option is to pull the return line from your trans cooler and drain about 1.5-2 qts at a time while running, shut it off and refill, then repeat until you have exchanged it all.

PSA, the gasket on the trans pan is reusable.

Roger350 said:

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They definitely design these to not be easily serviceable. No dipstick up top, but there is a "dipstick" down low next to the Cat/exhaust that will be nice and toasty when checking the fluid at proper operating temp. And to make it worse, the "dipstick" is a universal part with different lines denoting the proper level for different vehicle applications, exactly what you want to try reading through bifocals holding the burn on your arm, upside down on your back.

This is all I remember from my past research, and then I never ended up buying a truck with this trans so I have no first hand knowledge. I believe, like most others, there is no drain plug, so you have to drop the pan and make a mess, but I do not recall if dropping the pan is a straight shot, or requires tweaking in directions, prying on exhaust crossovers with a long pry bar, etc. like many others. Usually stuff is too tightly packaged to allow you to just drop it straight down, so even if you drain some of the fluid off by lowering a corner first, there is no way to do the job without creating a huge mess.

My level of trust with most shops tells me very few would actually do this job right, but maybe I am a distrusting jerk. I expect some shops will charge you all the extra labor to do it right, and then when you aren't present they'll just do a flush, and won't bother to actually check the level correctly either.

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You can suck out about 3 qts with a hand pump and it reduces the mess tremendously.

It's honestly not much more difficult from a contortionist's perspective than getting your arm through the small slot to change the oil filter.

texags08 said:

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Roger350 said:

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They definitely design these to not be easily serviceable. No dipstick up top, but there is a "dipstick" down low next to the Cat/exhaust that will be nice and toasty when checking the fluid at proper operating temp. And to make it worse, the "dipstick" is a universal part with different lines denoting the proper level for different vehicle applications, exactly what you want to try reading through bifocals holding the burn on your arm, upside down on your back.

This is all I remember from my past research, and then I never ended up buying a truck with this trans so I have no first hand knowledge. I believe, like most others, there is no drain plug, so you have to drop the pan and make a mess, but I do not recall if dropping the pan is a straight shot, or requires tweaking in directions, prying on exhaust crossovers with a long pry bar, etc. like many others. Usually stuff is too tightly packaged to allow you to just drop it straight down, so even if you drain some of the fluid off by lowering a corner first, there is no way to do the job without creating a huge mess.

My level of trust with most shops tells me very few would actually do this job right, but maybe I am a distrusting jerk. I expect some shops will charge you all the extra labor to do it right, and then when you aren't present they'll just do a flush, and won't bother to actually check the level correctly either.

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You can suck out about 3 qts with a hand pump and it reduces the mess tremendously.

It's honestly not much more difficult from a contortionist's perspective than getting your arm through the small slot to change the oil filter.

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The rectangular lunch meat container is the perfect size
To catch the oil and filter and leave no mess.