It's been less that 1000 miles on the new transmission.
When the engine is at idle, she purrs. However, now when I put her in gear with my foot on the brake, she has quite a loud diesel clatter bite.
The clatter is more noticeable than with the old transmission. It's as if the Engine Control Management software thinks it's going to go up a steep grade.
The lug at 35 mph is gone but one at 15mph around the 1st, 2nd gear is starting to show up ever so slowly.
The TC is locking up at 50 mph now.
I used to be able to run at 65mph turning 1850rmp. Now at 65mph I'm turning a hair more than 2000rpm.
Even from a dead stop, Libby is having to turn more RPM's to get me moving to about 30 mph. She has to turn about 2500rpm's to get me across an intersection and that's not jack rabbiting it!

The biggest shocker is that initially my water separator light flickering on and off gave the indication that the TC and Transpump was on it's last legs.
Yesterday while on business enroute from Evansville to Keeneland in Lexington on Highway 64, the water separator light was flickering again.
When I arrived at Keenland, she behaved ok but upon departure of the parking lot at the end of the day she started to heavily transmission stutter in first gear. The way back to Indy, the water separator light did not flicker or turn on.
I'm going to check the trans fluid since OLDNAVY mentioned the tranny taking 7 quarts in a previous thread

The tranny and EGR have seem to be the Achilles heal to this vehicle.

I think it is just a mistake in the text of the FSM, because of what it list for rebuild/initial fill amount of 14 qts of fluid. Now I am here to tell you that when you drop the pan you will not leave 10 qts of fluid in the TQ & cooling lines, and the manual says to add 4 qts when servicing. My guess is it may have been a typo and should have been 8 qts because the tranny is draining all the cooling lines, cooler, but not the pump. Then when you refill, it pumps it up into the cooling lines, filters and everywhere else, but when it is only filled with 3 or 4 qts at service and they go by the FSM and the cold full marks then send you on your way you have a tranny with fluid low enough to have the TC with little or no fluid to operate properly and pump that is running almost dry.

When it is filled like FSM says then you have all the same symptons the TSB was trying to correct because of inproper filter allowing draining of TC after prolonged sitting and a bad situation is made worse when this is done to the tranny resulting in total failure. But you try to tell the young engineer on the phone that the FSM is wrong he is going to disagree unless this problem is fully described and explained like I have here and then tech sends the vehicle out the door with a worse problem then it had when it came in the door.

I still say this is why as one of those that has had this TSB done and checked behind tech for propper fluid level, even on non related TSB related ocassion, is why we have had no further tranny problems and our tranny shifts as it should.

Let me restate that this really makes a very big difference in tranny operation and even when hot and the fluid is 1/8th inch below the upper low full hot hole, if you add a qt to bring into the middle of the two holes the tranny smooths out even more.

The biggest shocker is that initially my water separator light flickering on and off gave the indication that the TC and Transpump was on it's last legs.
Yesterday while on business enroute from Evansville to Keeneland in Lexington on Highway 64, the water separator light was flickering again.

It there a quick/simple way to tell if the WIF sensor is failing? If you have good fuel, a clean filter, and it running OK I could see it being as simple as a sensor going bad.

What computer generates the water in fuel light? Why I ask is on another thread it talks about what the F31 corrects. Someone on the thread determined both the Bosch ECM and Chrysler TCM want to be master on the same bus and DC "kludged" the programming to put one to sleep for after market scanner compatibility and a recent flash upset the delicate balance Could our tc/tranny/egr/egrflow control problems be a computer glich with the TCM and ECM walking over each other Just a thought.

What computer generates the water in fuel light? Why I ask is on another thread it talks about what the F31 corrects. Someone on the thread determined both the Bosch ECM and Chrysler TCM want to be master on the same bus and DC "kludged" the programming to put one to sleep for after market scanner compatibility and a recent flash upset the delicate balance Could our tc/tranny/egr/egrflow control problems be a computer glich with the TCM and ECM walking over each other Just a thought.

That nasty thought has been looming in the back of my mind.
If my new transmission begins to fail as the old one did, then faulty software design is a prime suspect.
It's one thing for our beloved "component swappers" (techs) to change out a mechanical device that is broke or failing.
It's a completely different story when programming logic is involved.

move it to the front, just got off the phone with my dealers service manager, he called to discuss the F31 recall that they couldn't/didn't do. According to him STAR has advised him the even a new TCM may not take the FLASH, THEY HAVE MULTIPLE SOFTWARE ISSUES THAT THEY ARE TRYING TO RESOLVE AND UNTIL THEY DO THEY AREN'T THROWING ANY MORE EXPENSIVE TCM'S AT THE PROBLEM.

My feeling, this is a recall and the vehicles are in violation of federal law, they have to resolve. This "experiment" of the CRD in the US market is going to cost DC millions.

In the meantime we the CRD owners need to document everything so we don't get stuck with large bills after the warranty period(i feel bad for the 06 owners).

Anybody have a clue what would happen if DC can't get our CRD's to comply with the emissions law???

They must have multiple versions of the Engine Control Module(ECM) and Transmission Control Module(ECM) because my CRD, built June 20, 2005, has taken two complete reflashes to both with no problems.

For mine it was first, 18-009-06.
Then, second one, 18-023-06.

All I know is mine took both reflashes with no problems.


This kind of makes sense in that 18-009-06 was for the 2005 models and 18-008-06 was for the 2006 models - it took two different TSBs due to model years to get the same programming modifications done.

Also, in 18-023-06, it has two different procedures to use depending on 2005 or 2006 model years. Could it be the 2006 model CRDs are having more reflash problems than the 2005s???

They must have multiple versions of the Engine Control Module(ECM) and Transmission Control Module(ECM) because my CRD, built June 20, 2005, has taken two complete reflashes to both with no problems.

For mine it was first, 18-009-06.
Then, second one, 18-023-06.

All I know is mine took both reflashes with no problems.


This kind of makes sense in that 18-009-06 was for the 2005 models and 18-008-06 was for the 2006 models - it took two different TSBs due to model years to get the same programming modifications done.

Also, in 18-023-06, it has two different procedures to use depending on 2005 or 2006 model years. Could it be the 2006 model CRDs are having more reflash problems than the 2005s???

Have you ever felt the controler on the right fender well? Mine feels warmer (hot) then I would like. I'll try to measure it with my non contact infrared thermometer this weekend. I can see this and a incorrect fluid level that oldnavy has identified causing all inds of prolems

He had a very high opinion of the 545RFE, that when properly programmed and with the proper fluid levels, it was very reliable and well built.

Here's tha part you've been waiting for - he stated that practically every one of the problems/symptoms we've seen could be attributed to improper tranny fluid level in one way or another.