Some early 2017’s exhibited harsh shifting or erratic shifting. There’s a TSB for that, - or is that a service memo (
@FordTechOne ? )
My Rap was one that was ‘held for additional QA’. When delivered it had almost 200 miles on it, and the dealer, fearing I’d back out of the deal, left me the FMC ‘punch list’ of repairs they made. There was at least one reprogram.
I never had harsh shifting, although I would not call it ‘gently’ shifting into any gear. Smooth? Yes, but not gentle. That said, it’s a truck, with 35 inch tires, weighing in at a conservative 5700 pounds, with a bunch of torque. I think it shifts just fine now, but at first, I had a problem in which the truck would only downshift at full throttle above 40mph. It’s easy to miss at first. The truck would just dump all 18 or so PSI of boost and that was that. Unless you were trying to merge on to an interstate, and then it was nowhere near fast enough. Sport mode worked fine, but
eco ‘normal’ mode was dangerous.
Fortunately, I heard about the harsh shifting reprogram ( on here ). I asked for it on a routine service and the the Tech wrote “checked TCM program, up to date”.
Took it back, only for this and they replied “you didn’t make a complaint to make you eligible for the reprogram” After some discussion, they agreed. Problem solved. Mostly anyway. I think it’s still way too lazy in normal mode but at least now it downshifts over 40 without full throttle.
I still think these symptoms match nicely with an overfilled transmission. I’d get it checked out independently or at another stealership first.