Good morning, question to the group....I have a '06 LR3 4.4l 195K that I love very much despite it biting me many times over the years. Great tow vehicle utilized many times. This past spring I was pulling a trailer out of hibernation and wheels started spinning. Rocked back and forth several times trying to get the momentum up getting deeper and deeper in the mud. Vehicle threw a transmission alert, disabled vehicle mode functions and produced a big "F" on the screen, no check engine lite. Disconnected trailer got out of hole with tractor help and "limped" back to my driveway. Next morning dash clear, drive mode accessible, "F" gone all seemed good. Hooked up trailer head off to pick up a car. First steep hill tranny lurched, all the same faults popped up again, driver modes disabled and vehicle went into limp mode. "limped" my way home, parked and sure enough next day all clear. Read older fluid could heat up and have trouble getting through an old dirty filter so having never changed out tranny fluid, and not knowing if previous owner ever did I got full kit from Atlantic British for fluid swap. Didn't want a full tranny flush for fear of messing with old stuff. Fluid was really dirty, filter very dirty so figured I might be on to solution. Car ran beautiful, smooth shifting around town and on highway. Very steep hills would struggle, hard down shift and 3 out of 5 times all same codes come back and car goes into limp mode. Limp home car sits overnight and all clear next day. Have been driving with no issues and learned how to baby my way up some steep hills but never definite it won't fall into "sick/limp" mode. Haven't found anything in research about this. All similar issues have codes that stay leading back to transmission issue. Mine all clear after sitting and car drives great until hill challenge. Sorry for the long description but funny problem hopefully someone out there in forum land has had same issue and maybe has an answer. Appreciate all and thank you for any ideas.

 

What codes do you get, then?

 

No codes first "Transmission fault driver modes disabled" then just the "F". Code reader shows no codes in system

 

Okay, I’ll continue with the silly questions.

Since you changed ATF, how much did you drain, how much did you fill and did you verify level according to ZF’s procedure at specific temperature range and engine running?

 

did not measure as pan came off and filter was changed although very dirty fluid and filter as well. Put back together and filled to over flow, ran shifting through gears then topped off back to over flow. Took all of 7 liters from The Atlantic British kit. Everything great until I tried accelerating up steep hill, hard down shift then everything lit up and went into limp mode. Next morning fine.

 

On the 2nd round of filling after going through the gears, was the trans temp at least 40*C? Also did you let it drip until it stopped or cap it dripping. If you didn't let it drip until it stopped you'd be overfilled.