Why? Because I don't want to be traveling with my boat in tow and have my transmission **** the bed.
How do you know we have no control over it? We know the drum rotates, but some don't for a long time, if ever. What's different for those that fail and the others that don't. There is/are reason(s).

 

Because human beings made the parts and sometimes things just fail. If nothing ever failed there would not be industry standards and engineering principals designed to mitigate risks because there would be no risks.

Any part of any vehicle at any time can take a dump. As can that boat you are towing. I'd rather be stranded on the side of the road with a boat in tow than stranded on the open water with no motor to control the boat. Paddling a full size boat is not fun.

 

Every time you start the truck and drive it you risk it crapping out. Every time you cross the street you risk getting run over. Every time you are outside in a thunderstorm you risk getting hit by lightning. 🤷

You have zero control over whether you got a particular combination of transmission parts where the CDF drum will fail, and pretty much have no way to confirm it. Thus the choices outlined in my other post. I understand wanting to "know" but that's very unlikely for your specific truck.

 

Thats the start of more issues to come.

 

Just a guess, but a properly tuned 10r80 fairs a better chance than a stock tuned one. Even if just tuning using the 21+ strategies seems to make huge improvements.

 

The secret is to pay for a lifetime powertrain warranty then it'll never fail. That's what I did.

 

That's what I'm banking on, lol. My 18 came with a lifetime powertrain warranty, so I'm hoping it is trouble free.

 

I get a chuckle at all of the fear mongering that the internet causes, not just here in this forum but everywhere. Internet forums are like surveys, people only respond if they have a bad experience, very few with no issues come onto these boards to say everything is great. There are roughly 3,600,000 F150's on the road with the 10R trans, look how many people have come here to say they have an issue to find answers....not that many in the grand scheme of things. Most people aren't going to have an issue with their transmission. The transmission shop I use says he doesn't see very many of these, he also doesn't understand why Ford has the CDF drum on backorder, he just orders the GM CDF drum which is no problem to get. If buying a new truck would make you feel better than go for it, I am not one to tell someone else how to spend their money, just say you want a new truck but seems a bit sad to use an excuse of something may happen when you have no issues with a vehicle.

 

You could say the same thing about cam phasors. Every single person I have met with a 3.5 17-18 f150 has had phasors issues at least once. It isn't a matter of if, but when. Zero of them visit this forum. One of those people has also had his transmission replaced twice before 80k. I'd love to see evidence that a 10r80 will go the distance, but there are very few forum members that have. Hard to determine statistics from that, but the issue seems very common. Rather than stick my head in the sand, I'd like to know if it is avoidable. At least with the cam phasors, the truck will still run just fine other than start up. However, once the drum rotates in the transmission, you are SOL.

 

I definitely won't say there's not a bias towards tales of failure on internet forums but if that's the case here it's weird how Ford issued a TSB, updated it a couple times, redesigned a part if most people aren't going to have a problem with it.

A better solution to getting rid of it may be researching possible cooler upgrades or auxilliary upgrades as the failure is usually caused by heat/pressure (along with nothing to keep the bushing in place). I think GM may use a more traditional style air cooler vs Ford's "exchanger". I've got a Hemi Durango with tow package that includes a front mount trans cooler and the dipstick on it has a "full cold" mark along with the "full hot"....it takes forever to get the trans fluid hot enough to check hot.