Transmission Max Line Pressure
 

Hello,


I recently bought a 2005 ford five hundred AWD limited. It has 96 thousand miles. It also has the CVT transmission. The miles are very low for Alabama. I bought the car private sale so I kinda got screwed. Was told there were no issues with the car and it drove fine when I looked at it. The issues started when I got it home.


The check transmission light came on. I didn't notice a issue at first till I put it in park and it shifted hard. Same thing with changing to drive or neutral. It doesn't do this all the time. You can go from A to B and nothing. But when it does happen it's hard not to notice.


I went to a mechanic and was told it was because the motor mounts were bad. They also found that it needed a new water pump which is unrelated to this but still nice to know it had no issues. All the mounts were changed and the water pump. The check transmission light came on after the first drive.


I took it to another mechanic and was told it was shifting under max line pressure. And the censor that knows when it is park so you can start it is going out. Nice to know apparently all the cencors are inside this model of transmission. The check transmission light goes off when you turn the car off. So it has been hard to read the computer because the codes don't stay it it.


I was told that if I even want to fix the sensor for the shift control I might as well get a new transmission because it's inside the transmission and all the labor and work they would have to do it would be cheaber.


Please I need help


What is going on?

Can I drive the car with this issue?

Will it need a new transmission?

Welcome to forum. I have the same car: 2006 model AWD with CVT tranny.
240,000 miles now, bought used at 210,000 in very good shape.

I wouldn't let your A, B mechanics anywhere near my car because (I suspect) they don't know your car or the problem, but need to do something to get paid. Your/our car is an uncommon car with a strange tranny. Our only hope of finding a mechanic who has ever been trained to service these cars is through the Ford dealership, or through YouTube for some work.

Cheapest tranny fix (my book) is get new fluid in it and hope it fixes itself. Your car's tranny is a Volvo unit (Ford owned Volvo for a time) and it takes only specific Ford (Volvo) fluid which happens to be pale blue-green in color (buy at Ford dealer, or have them do it). 'Tis chance a prior owner took it to same A, B mechanics and they put in the wrong fluid because they just didn't know.

So find your car's tranny dip stick (see other recent threads here on forum, or youtube?) and see if your fluid color is anything recognizable. Will turn brown with age, mine was light brown. On buying my car, literally first thing I did was two tranny fluid drain and fills separated by >10 miles of driving. Didn't touch any tranny filters. I did a third one later on, because I didn't want tranny issues down the road. Working well 30,000 miles later.

"was told it was shifting under max line pressure" - don't know what this means, but sounds like could be fluid property related. Could it be BS? LUCK.

Info in your area of concern in this thread :
https://www.fordforum.com/forum/ford...-cooler-42528/