How Ford All-Wheel Drive Power Transfer Units Fail and What You Can do to Prevent it!

[sgtsandman]

 

[racsan]

interesting. I’ll have to put the escape up on ramps and have a look. He never said what type of fluid, I’d guess a synthetic hypoid oil. Stupid move from ford not putting a drain plug in, Ive noticed with the escape I can rotate a rear tire when raised with a jack so there must be a one-way clutch in the rear driveline somewhere, Im not sure if the current generation exploders are the same idea ( primarily front drive with rear assist like awd escapes are ) but considering they look the same , just a different size it wouldn’t surprise me.

 

[Dirtman]

A drain plug on a driveline part?

But the you'd be tempted to change the fluid? If you do proper maintenance how will it explode? If it doesn't explode then how does ford make money selling you a new one?

You're just not making any sense...

 

[19Walt93]

It's the same mentality that thought up "lubed for life" automatic transmissions and 1 year/10,000 mile oil changes. The powertrain warranty ends at 5 years or 60,000 miles, if it lasts for 60,001 miles they don't have to pay to fix it. Before we would see PTU's fail, the customer would come on complaining of an exhaust smell. It wasn't exhaust, the PTU fluid was breaking down and boiling out the vent-right onto the exhaust pipe. They were smelling toasted PTU fluid.