Ford Reviews

The Territory is pretty well known in the fixit trade for having various transmission problems. Perhaps the most common was a failure of the entire transmission due to coolant from the transmission cooler mixing with the transmission fluid inside the gearbox. When that happened, the destruction was fairly complete with ruined electronics and internal hardware as the contaminated fluid could no longer satisfactorily lubricate the gearbox’s many moving parts. A whole new transmission was the usual outcome.

The first sign of this was usually milky transmission fluid (caused by the water mixing with the oil) but by then, the damage was often already done. This was more of a problem with the later model Territories with the six-speed ZF automatic transmission.

The first thing to do is get your mechanic to drive the vehicle when it’s hot. Arrange a time and then deliver the car at that time with everything up to full operating temperature. Otherwise, the problem isn’t going to show up when it needs to.

While there are lots and lots of things that can cause this sort of behaviour, it does sound like something in the actual powertrain is the problem. That’s because the shuddering goes away when you drop the transmission into neutral and let the vehicle coast to a stop. If the problem was a wheel, a wheel bearing, axle, brake problem or an out-of-balance driveshaft, the problem would continue even though you were coasting.

You may have a problem with something inside the transmission itself, way too much backlash somewhere in the driveline or a problem with the torque converter. Either way, you need to have your mechanic experience the problem or everybody is simply guessing.

Any time you have that combination of symptoms, the end result is possibly not going to be very good. Rangers of this year and model have experienced problems in the past that include poor fuel or other fuel-system damage causing a piston to develop a hole or crack, and even things like a failed EGR valve (which is water-cooled in this model) draining the radiator and causing the engine to melt down.

You need to have an experienced mechanic take a look at the vehicle before doing anything else, as there’s a high percentage chance that your engine will need to be rebuilt or replaced. You might be lucky and have a simple problem that is cheap and easy to fix, but plenty of Ranger owners will attest to the slimness of that chance.