My daughter has a 96 Windstar, 3.8 V6, 4 speed auto tranny with about 117300 miles. She says recently the tranny wouldn’t shift correctly, and that it was slipping and jerking. However, I’ve driven it twice since then (city driving and interstate for an hour) with no shifting problems at all. I can’t figure it out. Either it’s a figment of her imagination or the van likes me better. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Has anyone checked the transmission fluid. When was the last time it was changed?
I had one of these, never had engine/trans problem (though the speedometer went bad twice). Traded it at 75,000 miles, as the extended warranty expired, having read all the horror stories about the vehicle. See the link: http://www.aa1car.com/library/transmission_ford_ax4s.htm
HTH
Sorry the link didn’t show up.
See: http://www.aalcar.com/library/transmission_ford_ax4s.htm
Our 98 Windstar was running fine when we sold it with 98k miles. I heard all the horror stories after we bought it. I had the transmission fluid and filter changed every 40k (not a flush!). The transmission was not the smoothest shifting, but we had no problems with it.
Ed B.
Fluid has been changed about every 30,000 miles and it is not low.