If the 5R55N has excessive wear in the servo bores, the gearbox will not shift correctly and may leak fluid.

The servo bores should be repaired with an insert to restore the correct bore size.

 

Steering fell and on-center assuredness, and then a wobbly chassis-in that order.

 

That describes a faulty car. Fix it

 

To JagV8, what I meant by hesitating a little, when I'm cruising and accelerate the car doesn't react for a second or so, I've gotten used to accelerating a little early to compensate. It raises the revs slowly from a stand still until it gets going also. When I'm driving in the low to mid range of a gear the throttle response is good though. I haven't driven another S Type with a V8 for a comparison, rarely even see one. It seems like the transmission is deciding whether or not to let the engine go for a second, normal?

 

The first thing to try when key fob switches don't seem to be working smoothly is to douse the printed circuit assembly in 91% isopropyl alcohol and scrub gently with a toothbrush. Then rinse with fresh alcohol and gently blow dry with a hair dryer. The little switches have brass buttons and they can corrode (visible green staining) enough to make them sticky if the fob case has had moisture in it for any length of time. If it is bad enough, cleaning won't work. The buttons would have to be removed and replaced with new ones.

 

Yes, that was my experience with the 5R55N.
IMO, it is a design defect by Ford that affects the entire 5R55 family of transmissions. Ford Techs should know this, but it seems that some of them don't. The servo bores are machined into the body casting without any sleeves. Die casting aluminum alloys like A380 do not have enough strength and wear resistance for that kind of service.

Specific symptoms of servo bore wear are hesitation and delays in downshifting when accelerating, fluid leaks from the front of the transmission, and eventual slippage of bands. The leakage seems to be from fluid spraying from the servo bore and making its way out through a breather at the front of the transmission. The leak will look like a front seal leak and will run down the transmission housing to drip onto the hot right-hand exhaust pipe where it will generate a cloud of oil smoke that gets pulled into the cabin air intake, especially when slowing down for a freeway off-ramp. Another symptom, which may be related to low fluid level from the leak is that when coming to a stop at the bottom of an off-ramp, the transmission will drop into neutral on its own and re-engage when the engine is revved. Any of those symptoms, especially in combination, suggest that the transmission needs to be pulled and the servo bores get sleeves installed before the transmission self-destructs. Yeah, I had this problem, I went in to have it serviced several times, and yeah, the techs mis-diagnosed the problem. They had plenty of opportunity to figure it out and failed.

 

I wish, it also describes design characteristics. Mine had only 9800 smiles on it last year when I bought it, 22k now so nothings worn yet. I will have that TBI checked for tie rod(I think) tightness-they were under tightened at the factory if I recall the recall correctly.

 

Another common problem is when the mid-range and overdrive servo bores wear, the servo pin eventually harshly engages the band and breaks the end off.

Hopefully the Technicians working on your gearbox added the later modifications to the valve body and thermostatic cooler valve in addition to boring the servo housing and adding the sleeves.

 

<One consolation: Many Hondas have tranny problems also.

 

I personally would never own a Honda. And yes, they have gearbox issues as well. Not a fan of CVTs either, which Honda is using now.

 

I just checked my 'open everything' function. It activates after holding the unlock button for only ~1.5 seconds! Now, I found something else that I had not noticed before. ATM, it is frost temperature outside and my car is cold. The windows are opening only as long as I hold down the unlock button. In my past experience, once the open everything function is triggered, everything opens all the way and there is no way to stop it. Maybe this function monitors the outside air temperature sensor? If so, that would help avoid an accidental snow dump onto the front seat. There is still no way to close up everything except to put the key in the ignition and close everything by pushing the individual control buttons. One would think that you could just push and hold 'lock' and all would close, but no...

 

Open diff and Traction Control is a software solution to a hardware problem, something one would expect on an econobox, not a luxury car. It's a lame but somewhat functional solution. One would expect factory helical gear LSD with the ABS tuned to take best advantage from it.

I had the opportunity to put in LSD, but I didn't do it. I had the diff whine problem and it didn't clear up with fluid change. The ring and pinion were worn beyond recovery (glitter in the oil) and got to the point where I just needed to fix my daily driver. I found a junk yard pull diff that was in good condition for $100 and Jag service installed it for ~$500 or so. For my car, a drop-in replacement Quaif was available for ~600, then there would be labor to put it into the new Diff housing. I chose not to spend the extra ~$1000 on a car that now has over 250K miles on it. I'm putting that money instead into a Torsen T2 or Eaton Truetrac LSD for my 2WD pickup truck which really needs it.

 

If you get a price quote from Jag for a new diff and labor for R/R, yes, it is "thousands"... around $3K.

I got a junk yard pull, inspected it and had Jag do the R/R all for less than $700. Reasonable enough for me. I had some other rear suspension problems fixed at the same time; new shocks and replaced a lower control arm with worn bushings for a little additional labor. Got the parts from Rock Auto (exact OEM part #'s) and saved on labor charges bc some common parts were being removed during the overall job.

 

CVTs are limited to lower power engines because of the physical limitations of the metal link 'push' belt in what is an adaptation of a Reeves drive, similar to what is used on snowmobiles or mechanical continuously variable speed machine tools. (apologies for the off topic diversion)

 

For once, you've got to agree with the lawyers on this one. Such a feature would make it way too easy to cause harm to a child or pet, if they were in the path of the glass. You have to individually press the respective control switches inside the car for safety. Compare with holding one button on a fob, which means you may not even be in line-of-sight when closing everything.

Now in theory I think the windows are supposed to auto-open if a restriction is sensed when closing, but it's not very sophisticated. It's probably based on amperage draw of the window motor. Encounter some restriction, the motor works harder, causing amperage to increase, triggering the command to drive the window down. This is good to have this feature, but no way on earth am I going to test it by placing any part of my body in the way.

One feature I really wish was available for parking on hot days: The ability to simultaneously drop all windows about an inch for ventilation. Now that would be slick.

 

I have 5 fobs total. 3 are the 3-button low power Euro style that only work from about 6 feet away. I got them new. The dealer was able to code those into the door lock module memory, but they are just barely functional. The power is so low that they won't work when you stand just behind the trunk lid. You have to stand next to the driver's door to get them to work. It is identical for all 3 of the 3-button remotes that I have.
I got a used, super clean 4-button remote for less than $20 but the dealer was unable to program it with the service software package that they have. That is the one that I activated with the Chinese clone key programmer ($150), and it works perfectly. It is the one I now carry in my pocket. Oh, and if I hadn't asked Jag service to program the fob while I was in there for other R/R service, they would charged me $100 for 5 min worth of work.
The original, well worn fob that I got with the car had a bit of moisture trapped inside of the case which caused enough corrosion to the push buttons that the unlock button got sticky. Thorough cleaning with alcohol made it look better but it still sticks. Ultrasonic cleaning in alcohol might help. If not, an R/R of the button would be required, involving microelectronic solder repair which auto techs do not know how to do.

 

Yes, I am well aware of this, and I have to agree with you on the legal aspect. This is also why they did not implement a raise window detent individually that is similar to the lower detent. Thing is, I see that recently some cars over several brand marques allow the windows to be raised automatically with a single push of the button. Maybe they have improved the obstruction detection to the point where it passes liability concerns?

I sometimes leave the sunroof cracked open on hot days. It helps, but only a little. When you crack your door windows, it's almost like leaving your car unlocked. It only takes seconds to pull the lock lever with a metal rod and you're in. It's almost as quick as breaking a window with a punch, but quieter. The alarm doesn't activate either way.

And funny thing... Now that the weather is cold, the windows roll down only as long as I keep pressing the unlock button. That is exactly the feature that you are looking for. But it doesn't seem to work that way on hot days; the windows go all the way down and there is no stopping them, even by pressing the lock button.

 

The servo bore wear is what I was talking about.
The alignment of the bores is such that the application force to the band is not quite tangential, and it puts a side load on the servo pin. This is a major contributing factor toward bore wear, the other being the lack of a bushing. When the bore wears enough, there is sufficient fluid leakage (forceful spray) through the gap that the hydraulic pump cannot deliver enough pressure to the servo to fully actuate the band. Then the transmission slips, and this happens well before the pin would break from the info that I have found.
In the future, I will avoid any vehicle that has any version of the 5R55 transmission.

 

On a tangent of this issue, my low mile 07 occasionally has the windows reverse their closing trip and re-open when about 1/2 way up. It must be sensing restriction. What's the best way to lube the windows-in their rubber tacks with some dry or silicone lube?

 

That's not really a way to say it must cost thousands. It's a way to say it can if you're daft enough (or rich enough) to get a dealer to do it.