Transmission Cooler?

[nonotme42]

So my truck is supposed to have the towing package, which I thought is supposed to include a transmission cooler...at least a small one!

 

I had the transmission flushed at 38k, 12k miles ago, because it was acting up, and doing exactly what it's starting to do again. One of the more annoying behaviors is it not engaging 1st upon decel....so when I'm stopped, the light turns green, and I'm ready to go again, 1st gear hasn't been engaged yet...and it takes a press on the gas, with the trans in second, let off, press again and it LURCHES into first. It's not a super common occurrence, but it is very annoying.

 

Otherwise, the remainder of the issues lie in it just simply not shifting quick enough, or just being a little too rough....now don't get me wrong, I like a good stiff shift, knowing that the clutches are engaging hard to keep them from wearing out too fast, but most of the time, I simply can't tell if its the transmission or what is being so rough...mostly at the 2-3 shift.

 

The 1-2 shift is another pain...under normal acceleration, it engages just well enough to not slip, and also enough to not feel it, it's wonderful when I'm driving people around and I'm trying to make it a little bit of a comfortable experience...but when I'm say...coming away from a tollbooth or something like that where I tend to need to get moving at a good rate of speed, at say, half throttle-ish, first is strong, and gets me goin, and then I hit second and it BOGS and it doesn't feel like the transmission engaged like it should under half throttle. I guess there's a very good chance that it is the steep drop in gearing, and the fact that it's trying to move 3 tons of metal with that gearing change...but still...the factory mid-full throttle shift seems a little whimpy. Tow/Haul mode tends to certainly help with that, but I can still feel that shift slipping a bit...but tow haul takes it to the other end of the spectrum, having it shift hard under light conditions, and not really hard enough (in my opinion) under full load.

 

My feeling is that if anything is going to help, it's going to be a transmission cooler, possibly new fluid AGAIN, and a filter change. I will probably look into getting it tuned and adjusting the shift pressures at that time..hopefully this will help in the mean time.

 

Side note...this is what the transmission fluid is looking like after just 12k miles....(new Dex VI on the right)

It's obviously not horrible, but in my opinion, it shouldn't be oxidizing already...especially with it being Dex VI!

 

Truck is now 4 years, 5 months old since manufacture, and just hit 50,000 miles on Wednesday. I definitely want to do everything I can to keep it so its around at 150,000 going just as strong.