I have a 2010 Taurus sho, still (in December 2021) with the original PTU. The car has 98k miles right now, and the PTU is clean inside, and it still works nice and silent. My ptu does not have a drain plug. The ptu runs fine right now, no issues at all, **knocking on wood**. Anyhow....
How did I keep it maintained? By religiously changing the fluid at least every 30,000 miles or sooner. I change it every 20k miles, because I don't mind doing it more frequently. If you do this, the PTU will easily last at least 200k miles or potentially even 300k miles before it starts making noise due to wear. Having fresh clean fluid is key to make sure the ptu bearings and gears get properly lubricated and cooled too.
I sometimes went to the dealership to get the fluid changed out, but sometimes I did it myself in the driveway with the car on jack stands. It's a pain to do it, but once you settle on the proper tools and proper "gymnastics" to squeeze your hands to the fill plug, it becomes like a ritual, and it only takes 30 minutes to do it.
I always used Motorcraft 75w-140 gear oil in the ptu (until about 85k miles), because that's what was recommended in the owners manual, and the MC gear oils are cheap at Wally world. Recently, at around 85k miles, I switched to Amsoil Severe Gear 75w-140, just to see what all the hype is about Sever gear oil from Amsoil. The one thing I noticed was, the car does coast better with Amsoil severe gear oil. The car used to drop speed pretty quickly even with new clean MC gear oil, but with Amsoil, the car coasts so much better, and the fluid seems to stay clear and cleaner for longer, compared to the MC. I'm looking to swap out the diff fluid with Amsoil severe gear oil too, because right now, I've been running MC 80w90, and changed it at 60k miles last. I will just use 75w90 or maybe 140 on the diff too just to make service easier for both diff and ptu. I will have to change both the ptu fluid and diff fluid very soon, will be using Amsoil 75w140 for both ptu and diff. 140 will be fine for the diff too. 75w90 is for fuel economy, 75w140 will still protect it from wear just as good.
Another thing I religiously did ever since I did my first ptu fluid change when the car reached about 28k miles was clean the ptu magnetic fill plug at least at every 10k miles intervals. When I did my first ptu fluid change, I was shocked at how much metal was on the fill plug. The fluid was dark, almost black, and had some sparkle to it... That was very concerning to me, even though I knew the ptu went through the "break in" period. So ever since then, I started cleaning the magnetic fill plug every 10k miles, and I also started changing the fluid every 20k miles. The ptu is still going strong with almost 100k miles. The metal shavings started to slow down a little at about 50k miles. Now at almost 100k miles, there's very very little thin layer of very very fine metal shavings on the fill plug when I remove it to inspect it every 10k miles, the ptu is "broken in", and it is wearing nicely. What this tells me is the ptu is not destroying itself because I change the fluid often, and clean the magnet often so it does its job.
I go under the car every 10k miles to check everything. Make sure nothing is leaking, and to make sure everything looks good. When I go under the car, I clean the fill plug. It takes literally 5 minutes to take off the fill plug, clean it, and to ***** it back on.
And also, because I have a 2010 SHO, with the 3.5 Ecoboost, Ford recommended 5w20 back then. 2011 and newer SHO's use 5w30. I've been using 5w20 this whole time, and no my engine did not blow up. Water pump had to be changed once at around 80k miles, but the timing chain and everything was still really really tight and clean, even with 5w20. I might switch to 5w30 soon, because I'm concerned with fuel dilution. My engine oil absolutely reeks gasoline smell when I do a lot of short trips. Even though the engine is still fine, I think 5w30 will be better and I might be able to increase the oci slightly with peace in mind. My car loves Pennzoil platinum 5w20, and that's what I've used on my car pretty much since 2015. Before that, I actually used Motorcraft synthetic blend 5w20, and kept the oci at 5k miles or sooner. Anyhow, I recently switched to Amsoil signature series 5w20 from PP 5w20. I think I finally found out Amsoils SS is the oil my car absolutely loves. The engine sounds very smooth and runs really quiet with Amsoil, and it does not burn ANY oil. I change the Amsoil SS out about every 5k miles, just because I don't mind doing that. My engine is happy, and that's what I like. 5k miles is about every 5-6 months for me.
This was a long one! Wanted to keep it short, but I figured this would start some new conversations, although this thread kind of looks like it pretty much stopped at September.
