This issue probably been covered ad nauseam. However thought I would post my recent experience after having my truck in for repairs using my ESP. Soon after buying my new 2017 F150 Lariat t-turbo it always felt like it had a very annoying shudder under hard acceleration and worse when towing. I have other vehicles so my truck only has about 25K miles on it. I always thought it was the transmission doing it. Had it in several times but it was never fixed.

It was in because the back up sensors weren’t working. I mentioned to the service mgr about the annoying shudder which had been previously looked into. He said oh… probably the short back drive shaft. Mine has the 2 shafts because of the longer bed. I said is that a known issue and he said yes and the parts have been on back order for months. He said he’d put in a new one whenever the B/O drive shafts came in.

As luck would have it he called the next morning and said I was living right as all the new shafts came in yesterday afternoon. He would make sure a new one was installed. Picked up my truck a couple days later and immediately tested out the new driveshaft. WOW.. Totally smooth, no shudder and some smoking rubber. It felt like a new truck and I was thrilled. Came home hooked up my flatbed with Kubota loaded (about 8000 lbs) and it pulled fantastic. No shudder at all and made the truck so much more enjoyable to drive.

Just thought it was interesting the service mgr seemed to know exactly what the problem was. Could have fixed a long time ago but the service mgr is new and has only been there a couple of years. With my ESP plan it cost me 100 bucks for everything!

 

Good outcome for you. It's nice when you run into someone who knows exactly what's wrong and what to do to make it right.

 

Did they say what the issue was with the shaft? I have something like that but don't want to drop $350 to find out it is something else....and it isn't bad enough for me to take it back in.

 

No he didn’t say what the issue was but if I get a chance I’ll ask the service mgr. He said it was most likely the drive shaft without even test driving the truck? lol Seemed a bit strange until he said the drive shafts he needed were on backorder. Would tend to think I wasn’t the only one complaining about that shudder issue. I woiuld have bet money it was the transmission but shudder is completely gone and even a strange noise I had is also gone. I thought for awhile it was the tires but it had to be that damn drive shaft being out of balance or something. I was at the point where I was avoiding any heavy towing because I didn’t like the way it felt pulling a load. I wonder if there was a TSB on the issue but without my ESP probably wouldn’t have gotten fixed.

 

Maybe I can buy the shaft and try it out then return it if it doesn't fix it??? I may try that if I get some time this winter. Thanks