My 2019 F150 Platinum (90K miles) hesitates, and somewhat lurches in a staccato pattern for several seconds when accelerating. This can be from a stop, or going from 29 MPH to 40, or from 45MPH to 60. It seems to occur before the turbo kicks in. After a few seconds, when done accelerating, it runs fine. There are no noises, obvious leaks, or check engine signals. The Ford dealership said nothing is showing on their computer, so think it might be the transmission. Any thoughts/. Thanks for your insights.
Mike M

 

There are many possible causes for stumble/hesitation on acceleration and possible transmission problem is only one of them.

The majority of the time it is engine related and the trans only passes it on to the driver.

Regular, recommended maintenance is a good way to prevent a lot of problems and stumble/hesitation can be only one of them.

 

Exactly. So what have you done at 90k miles?
Have you replaced your PCV valve and check its hose?
High oil consumption without leak (you have to add more oil every once in a while)?
Any tranny fluid change?
Check your intake valves and see if you need a walnut blasting, even though your 3.5L ecoboost with dual injection system (port + direct injection - PFDI) your intake valves may still suffer from carbon buildups. I should say, on older ecoboost (with direct injection) you should walnut blast it every 30k to 50k (30k when driving stop n' go more often), and yours do it at 80k to 100k.

To monitor the health of your truck and see if there is a boost leak or vacuum leak I strongly suggest you as well as ALL ford owners with a ford 1996-UP to buy OBDLink MX+ so you can monitor live data in real time. Do not buy any cheap adapter, you need MX+ just because it has Ford (as well as many other car make) OEM enhanced support so you can retrieve all Ford specific DTCs as well as monitoring so many different PIDs. You can buy MX+ on Amazon, and of course keep it if you like it, and I'm sure you will want to keep it.

To check whether or not you have a vacuum leak you simply want to check LTFT on both banks when engine is idling at operating temperature. Ideally closer to 0 is better, if you see +10 or +20 that's a good sign that you have a vacuum leak somewhere.
For boost leak you want to check the MAP pressure and Wastegate duty cycle, the available PIDs on every vehicle is different, not until the adapter is physically plugged into your obd2 port, you can select and show all the relevant ones. You will want to check the desired boost vs actual boost, the closer the better.
Driving habit and style may vary and I have seen many folks who don't even know how to drive, let alone driving a turbo car and how to take care of the turbo. Let me give you an example, when you have a 6-speed manual you know you should downshift (and rev match of course) when driving up a little steep hill on the freeway, let say you are driving at 70mph on flat with 2500 RPM, when driving up the hill and RPM drops to 2000 RPM or below, it's time that you need to downshift to bring up the RPM to 2700 or 3000. At low RPM you are putting heavier load to the turbos and you don't want to do that.

With MX+ there are hundreds (if not thousands) more PIDs you can select to display, including transmission temp, if you think there is an issue with your tranny. The downside of MX+ is the lack of coding/programming, you can basically retrieve all ford specific DTCs, erase them, and monitor all possible PID's live data. If you need to fix or program or reset adaptations, you will want to get Foxwell NT510 Elite.

Anyway, first thing you need to retrieve all possible DTCs yourself regardless of what Ford dealership told you.
Let say you have a vacuum leak at the vacuum pump, it can have a boost leak symptom when accelerating. Yes, your turbo wastegate gets vacuum from the vacuum pump.