It's much worse when towing -- the noise part. The shifting is bad all the time, worse in warm weather. Shifting problem came first, then the noise when I hooked the rig back up and towed it from CO to AZ, just as I was arriving at my destination, after some pretty hairy mtn passes. Rain or sun, don't think those are factors, just heat and cold. Almost never had the shift issue at 8500 feet this summer but every time I dropped down 2000 feet to CO Springs it was really bad.
They looked at the plate/wheel as well as they could without taking it apart and didn't see any cracks.
I just called the guys at the Ford dealership who have my truck now and described all this and asked if they could maybe confirm that was the problem before installing the transmission.
I also asked if my truck has the cooling lines under the radiator and he said it does.
