I picked up my vehicle bone stock with 22,000 miles on the clock, due to this the car always seemed crisp in both acceleration and shifting from the moment I got it. After getting tuned and doing a couple other supporting mods the instant power and smoothness of how it came on was magnified even more. Fast forward to 10,000 miles of spirited driving and I've began to notice the car getting sluggish.
At first I thought it was due to carbon buildup so I had a complete intake manifold cleaning done via the 3M Tune Up Kit. This brought back some power but the most notable difference was swapping PTU fluids. I picked up a bottle of Royal Purple 75w140 gear oil locally for $18 and a Penzoil hand pump for $9, best $27 I ever spent. Immediately I noticed the power and crispness come back.
Now I honestly believe everyone who owns a PTU equipped vehicle needs to swap the fluid at least once a year. I remember hearing people on here state that the car is quicker in Auto v.s manual shifting via the paddles, though I recall when I first got my vehicle that using the paddle shifters made the car drive noticeably better. Not only do you have more control it just felt more powerful, and swapping fluids to the RP definitely brought this back.
So my consensus? Driving the car hard (as in any other driving style aside from grandma style) put's accelerated wear on the oil in the PTU. When I swapped the fluid, the PTU case was significantly hotter than anything else on the car (engine, down pipe cats, etc.) and upon unscrewing the fill plug there was a quarter inch of sludge/grease on the end of the plug. The fluid was pitch black and smelled horrible, almost nauseating, as compared to the sweet smelling, more fluid and translucent purple color of the Royal Purple oil. Not only was the "lifetime" fluid destroyed it was probably around 40% empty.
You have to pay to play, no other way around it. If you want to do yourself and the future owner of your ecoboost powered vehicle a favor then spend the sub $100 a year to get this done.
Royal Purple 75w140 Gear Oil = $18-20
Penzoil Fluid Pump = $9
Labor = $0-80
All you need to do this is a socket wrench and 1-1.5 feet of extensions and the items listed above. It took me 15 minutes to unplug the screw, then 5 minutes each to suck out the old fluid and pump in the new. If you buy all the items above and go to a local mechanic with a photo of the drain plug I doubt they will charge you more than $40 to perform this 15 minute service, especially since having a lift would be much easier.
