I think I know what happened here. The procedure for refilling the transmission after servicing it is a two step process. You add a certain amount of fluid cold, start the truck, and after the fluid has circulated, you add more until you get a reading on the dipstick. That's the cold fill. Then you drive it until the transmission temperature comes up to full temp, and then you check the fluid level while it's hot and running, and incrementally add more fluid until the level is between the two marks on the dipstick.
That second step is punishing. The dipstick is so close to the catalytic converter that if you do it bare handed you will get burnt. Since you have to add fluid a little bit at a time and check the fluid level after each bit of fluid you add, you will get burnt at the same places on your hand multiple times. It's really hard to use gloves because it's so tight and because you need bare fingertips to feel what you're doing. I serviced my transmission at 45K miles... (Glad I did, too. That 100K mile service interval in the owner's manual is ********. The fluid was dark, dirty, and there was a film of metal particles all over everything.) ...and the first and second knuckles of my right hand had third degree burns that took over a month to heal. The scars were visible for months thereafter. I imagine that all over America there are Ford mechanics with burn scars and low regard for Ford engineers.
So I think that the mechanic that did the trans flush for @
Skyfrog only did the first step - the cold fill. He didn't want to get burnt (again), so he didn't do the hot fill. Betcha. It's crappy workmanship, but the guy makes his living with his hands and he can't do that very well if he keeps burning them over and over. The fault here is with the design. The solution is B&M part number 22200 - a remote dipstick that, once installed, enables the owner to add fluid and check the fluid level from under the hood instead of under the truck.
