long story short.....I had a ford excursion back in 2003 that had the transmission go right after the warranty went out. Vowed never to own a ford again. 7 years later (this year) I decide to buy a new Ford Platinum F150. Best truck I have ever owned except....it has a MAJOR clunk when shifting from park into gear about once a week. I called the service dept at the dealer I bought it from and they say that they are seeing this problem but they need to be able to repeat it so I have to wait till it slowly gets worse so that it will do it regularly before they can fix it. Whats the deal? is this a problem transmission? They acted like this is common. I feel helpless because now I just have to wait as things get worse before it can be fixed. Any thoughts on what the problem is?

 

Take it in anyway, you may get lucky and they will see the symptom, if they know there is an issue then they need to be pushed to fix it.

 

parking on an incline without using the parking brake CORRECTLY?

 

Transmissions 'fail' so infrequently that in all likelihood it was something your or the previous owner (if one) was doing in your everyday driving that contributed to the failure. And now you are experiencing something making noise in the drivetrain again.
Hmmmmmm.
Are you hard on vehicles? Not bashing, just asking.

"clunking" when shifting into gear usually indicates a u-joint issue. Have you got underneath the truck and rotated the driveshaft by hand with the rear wheels elevated off the ground? You can tell a lot about u-joints by doing this.

Or you could just go medieval on your dealer and say, "I didn't pay damned near $50K for a truck that makes ANY noise...FIX IT!

 

Brand new trucks don't "CLUNK" take it in and have them start replaceing stuff til it stops.

 

if you park it on rearward incline shifting from park to reverse can produce a clunk for sure!

 

Correct, forward though too!

 

Though I think if your on a forward incline going to reverse gear makes it slightly more easy on it? Though yeah still a good practice to do the handbrake either way.

 

My 2010 5.4 4X4 XLT SCAB was delivered to me with a tranny problem. It took three weeks for Ford to get parts to the dealership. The truck shuddered when shifting from 1st to 2nd, but after that it shifted fine. The problem was a front pump seal cracked and they had to do TSB 101801. Works fine now....the dealership was great, but it took way to long for Ford to get parts to the dealer.