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One of the plaguing issues with the Transit Connect is the transmission. Countless stories of transmissions biting the dust at or around 100k miles. We’ve all read about it. I’ve even been a victim of my van’s trans acting up. This ultimately led to the retirement of the van from racing competition. That was 4 years ago. Van still runs and has 190k miles. Every now & then, with no consistent factors or patterns, transmission will act up and give me troubles. Never once has it left me stranded. But it left me limping to my destination one way or another. Sometimes, if I cycle power on the car, I’m able to get by. It’s a ticking time bomb at this point. One of these days the van won’t recover. It’s one of those scenarios where I can’t front the $3k—$5k for a new transmission. It would be more reasonable to drive it until it dies then pick up some cheap shitbox or finance a used car with a low payment. Until I came across these kits in the attached photos. Apologies if the photos are not in order or they don’t work. I’m posting off my phone for the first time. These kits claim to restore functionality in the transmission. They claim to rectify the shift issues (have those), the ratio codes (have those), and other trans issues (have those). This isn’t a full rebuild kit. This doesn’t include clutch packs or bushings. These kits also claim the transmission does not need to be dropped to perform this repair. It’s basically a bunch of components to rebuild the solenoid/valve body. Which makes sense when I think about what may be causing my sporatic drivability issues. This also may not fully repair my issues. It may need a full rebuild, especially knowing that I used to beat on this van for racing. But a $200 repair kit is a much more approachable option to start. I like to think I’m a 7/10 wrencher. I can do most of anything depending on resources, tools, time, and money. I’ve pulled motors and dropped trans before. But I’ve never messed with anything internal in auto trans. Trying to figure out if this is within my scope of work. if anyone has experience using kits like these for these vans or other applications, I’d love to learn more.

My work recently purchased a second hand 2011 Transit Connect (Gas-Powered US Model) with approximately 70K miles. It has blown the transmission after something like 6 months and < 10k miles traveled (the Ford tech pulled the transmission oil pan and it was filled with metal shavings). I would like to purchase a replacement transmission and potentially install it myself. I have the following questions: There are seperate parts listings for "From 1/17/11" and "Thru 1/16/11" - what is the difference? According to what I've read the transmission should be this transmission - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_4F27E_transmission Is there a model year difference? In that same train of thought, it seems that the Ford Focus 03-11 uses the same transmission, are they completely interchangeable? The powertrains seem to be vastly similar. Finally, is there anything I can do to extend the transmission life on this vehicle? It seems as if the engine/transmission were designed for fairly low loads and light usage, but we're using it as a work van to carry tools/ladders (nothing super-heavy, but non-trivial amount of weight and drag from roof-rack ladders). I briefly considered a manual transmission swap, but would a transmission cooler help? Thanks in advance.