My 2010 Ford Escape Shifts hard, but only first thing in the morning. After it warms up I doesn’t seem to do it. It has 66,000 miles on it and and when this started I took it to a transmission shop and they flushed out the transmission fluid. There were no warning in the computer for the transmission. I’m thinking it may not be the transmission, but an acceleration problem. Could this be true?
If I had this problem first thing I’d do is check w/the local Ford dealership shop to see if there are any technical service bulletins that would a apply to this problem. No? (I’d be surprised if they say “no”.) But if they do say “no”, next I’d do a proper transmission service, which means to drop the pan, replace/clean the filter, inspect for metal filings at the bottom of the pan, and re-fill with the correct fluid per the shop manual procedure. I presume you instead had what’s called a “transmission flush”, it’s a less expensive alternative, but isn’t the same as a proper service.
They did just do the flush. Part of the expense with this transmission is that everything is sealed and again my suspicion is that it may not be a transmission problem, but some kind of throttle problem. My wife it the primary driver of this vehicle so it doesn’t always happen to me. It runs fine once the car is warmed up.
Most cars shift on higher rpms when cold. This is to give time to things to warm up. You are sure that’s not what we are talking about here, in other words, is this something new for your car?
Not possible of course to diagnose via the internet, but a hard shift when cold sounds like a transmission problem to me. Find a copy of Consumer Reports Car Reliability Guide and read what it says about this make/model/year. It will list the known issues with the engine and transmisison. My local Barnes and Noble stocks and displays it in the magazine section.
I did a search and many people have the same problem. Was the service bulletin for reprogramming the computer done? http://www.carcomplaints.com/Ford/Escape/2010/transmission/downshifts_hard_while_accelerating.shtml