Service your RDU and PTU EARLY!

[EtanSM]

I planned a trip to Florida towing my 2500lb camper. Decided I should service the transmission, RDU, and PTU before the trip. Glad I did. The truck had 38k when I performed the service. Transmission fluid looked fine but the RDU and PTU fluids looked like liquid metal. Like many other people’s opinions, I highly recommend you service these items before 30k miles. Both units seemed underfilled and obviously very metallic. This is a 2023 Maverick, Ecoboost, FX4, 4k towing.

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[Finnster]

Quick! Store the drain oil in clear mason jars, let it sit for a week, then see if any water separates out.

 

[Hootbro]

I did my wife's Bronco Sport PTU and RDU at 15K miles and it looked a lot like what you showed. Recently changed it again at 30K miles and the fluid looked almost pristine and probably could have gone a lot more but showed that first change out is pretty important.

Probably will do my Maverick Hybrid AWD at 5K miles and then every 15K to 20K miles after that.

 

[matmondro]

When I did my first PTU and RDU service at 25k miles, the fluids looked just like that.

As @Hootbro mentioned above, when doing my second service yesterday at 50k miles, the PTU and RDU fluids looked essentially brand new. Which was very surprising, but great to see!

 

[EtanSM]

Quick! Store the drain oil in clear mason jars, let it sit for a week, then see if any water separates out.

I definitely should have, but it was a few weeks ago and the fluid is long gone. If I was still active duty I would have taken a couple samples over to NDI for oil analysis, would be interesting to see the results.

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