66RFE Experience

[Kona3085]

After reading many posts and taking away so much great information from the Ram forum, I decided to share my RFE experience to maybe help someone else, and/or get some advice. First post, have a 2017 2500, 6.4.

My transmission went into limp mode while pulling our ORV 21DBS camper in January 2022. Pulled to the shoulder and turned the truck off, waited, then back on, and for the rest of the trip it didn’t happen again. I took it to the dealer when we returned. They rebuilt the transmission at 64K miles under extended warranty. From invoice, dealer repair included:

-Valve Body pkg
-Plate pkg-planetary thrust
-Converter-torque
-Bearing-needle roller
-Pump Kit-Transmission oil
-Clip-power distribution center
-Gskt pkg-transmission
-Cooler-transmission
-Nut-U
-Transline oil cooler lines bundle
-Screw-hex flange head
-Filter pkg
-4x4 filter
-ATF+4

From dealer invoice:
“…teardown using group a and b, replace transmission bearing and shim…perform overhaul, replace all clutches…clean, inspect, and test all bearings, gears, pistons, and seals, reassemble transmission…replaced trans cooler line bundle…replaced transmission cooler, filled, quick learn, retested…”

That started my RFE research on this Ram forum. I was lucky to find a warm day in February 2023 to do the job with truck at 88K miles. Parts I used to replace OEM:

-Royal Purple 10-2867 (paint removed)
-Mag Hytec RFE45
-ATS thermal bypass
-Lubelocker gasket
-Sonnax CH146
-Redline C+
-Revmax steel fitting (for screw on filter)
-Mopar Sump filter

Unfortunately, after 5 days of easy driving my roundtrip commute of 40 miles, while exiting to home, truck shuddered for a second and went into 4th. The next day dropped the pan, thinking a filter got loose, everything looked good and tight. ALFAOBD codes: P0731, P1521, P1776, P2706. Currently, truck sits at a transmission shop.

 

[mtofell]

Mine's failed twice - once @ 38K, once @ 90K and been rebuilt both times. First was under factory warranty, second under Maxcare Lifetime Warranty. Does all that aftermarket stuff you did now void your warranty? I've always kept mine bone stock for that reason.

 

[Ramv]

Mine just failed at 97k miles. Never had been over 172 deg F. Doing a billet upgrade with lifetime warranty now

 

[HEMIMANN]

Transmissions have numerous components, and major component groups.

It isn't helpful to members to just say "it failed". What failed?
Torque converter, clutches, gears, solenoids, valve body, oil varnishing, planetaries.

RFE valve bodies are known poor design, solenoid, shift pistons, sealing. O.D. clutches umderdesigned and slip. Cooler thermostat too small and fail closed overheating oil and varnishing oil passages closed.

The planetary gear packs and torque converter seems ok. For me, the key was to get that oil temp down, use superior oil, and not dog the overdrives when loaded.

 

[mtofell]

Transmissions have numerous components, and major component groups.

It isn't helpful to members to just say "it failed". What failed?
Torque converter, clutches, gears, solenoids, valve body, oil varnishing, planetaries.

RFE valve bodies are known poor design, solenoid, shift pistons, sealing. O.D. clutches umderdesigned and slip. Cooler thermostat too small and fail closed overheating oil and varnishing oil passages closed.

The planetary gear packs and torque converter seems ok. For me, the key was to get that oil temp down, use superior oil, and not dog the overdrives when loaded.

One of the beautiful parts of having a Lifetime Warranty is I don't know or care why it failed.... for all I know the squirrels inside got tired and needed to be fed Just kidding... of course I care and am interested.

I know after the second rebuild it was still going into limp mode so they replaced the valve body. I'm not sure why they didn't start with that since it seems that is one of the many weak points.

First failure the "valve body accumulator plate" failed and shot metal all through the tranny and cooler. It was totally tore up by the time I drove it off the freeway and got to a safe place. From reading the invoice all the inside clutches and steels were replaced along with the cooler.

Funny aside.... I have a Jeep Cherokee as one of my company delivery vehicles and got a call from my employee today that the engine was revving up and down and the vehicle was barely moving. Got him to limp it to the dealer and I went and met him. 61K miles, 2 years old and the tranny is toast. These FCA trannies sure aren't like to the old Maytag Man I guess they built it just good enough to get past the 60K powertrain warranty. Luckily I bought another extended warranty.

I can't imagine the bean counters that price those warranties are too happy with me. I'm +/- $3500 paid for mine on two vehicles and will be well over 20K in benefit. I suppose my experience is not typical but I'm sure glad I bought them.

 

[HEMIMANN]

One of the beautiful parts of having a Lifetime Warranty is I don't know or care why it failed.... for all I know the squirrels inside got tired and needed to be fed Just kidding... of course I care and am interested.

I know after the second rebuild it was still going into limp mode so they replaced the valve body. I'm not sure why they didn't start with that since it seems that is one of the many weak points.

First failure the "valve body accumulator plate" failed and shot metal all through the tranny and cooler. It was totally tore up by the time I drove it off the freeway and got to a safe place. From reading the invoice all the inside clutches and steels were replaced along with the cooler.

Funny aside.... I have a Jeep Cherokee as one of my company delivery vehicles and got a call from my employee today that the engine was revving up and down and the vehicle was barely moving. Got him to limp it to the dealer and I went and met him. 61K miles, 2 years old and the tranny is toast. These FCA trannies sure aren't like to the old Maytag Man I guess they built it just good enough to get past the 60K powertrain warranty. Luckily I bought another extended warranty.

I can't imagine the bean counters that price those warranties are too happy with me. I'm +/- $3500 paid for mine on two vehicles and will be well over 20K in benefit. I suppose my experience is not typical but I'm sure glad I bought them.

Yep. The good 'ol valve body. Make a good driveline then install an umderdesigned valve body.

Sign of no Chief Engineer watching over the system design, and/or bean counter cost dictation.

Also sign of compartmentalized functional profit centers = bad executive management. Members have had good success with upgraded valve bodies from Sonnax, available at Rock Auto and Summit Racing. Built correctly.
It requires a PCM clear and relearn, though. I already tuned my truck, otherwise I would have made this mod for sure.

 

[DodgeDude99]

I put a valve body in my 68RFE, just over a year ago. I bought a brand new Mopar VB, added the Sonnax accumulators,plate, & solenoid switch valve, bonded separator plate, & DNJ billet lower half. Essentially one of the fancy ones but (at the time) about $600 cheaper.

Now that valve body when I bought it came with the solenoid pack and was just over $500, last I checked they’re up to $1500.

 

[Kona3085]

Regarding the aftermarket parts, I had to weigh the benefit of having a stout RFE transmission that hopefully will be reliable versus having the RFE breakdown again. For me, the benefit of having, hopefully, better parts to help avoid a future breakdown, outweighed having another visit to the dealership covered by warranty with stock parts. This forum convinced me that a cooler transmission and a better valve body are important to staying on the road. Our camping trips tend to have departures after work, into remote areas, and have night time arrivals.

Picked my truck up late Friday from the transmission shop. The bill was $5200 for a rebuilt transmission: $3090 in parts and $2110 for labor. The shop was referred by a buddy who owns an auto repair shop, so I decided to trust their work. I am not a mechanic, so I put my trust with the shop. They supported the use of the thermal bypass and a better valve body. The work entailed “completely disassemble the transmission: thoroughly clean and inspect all internal and external parts including case and housing.” The list of items is long, and included a new torque converter.

The transmission shop said, the RFE had 2 of 5 bolts loose on the stater, which is attached to the pump, and that is why the RFE failed. Most likely, last year at the dealership, they would not have detected the loose stater. I was able to wiggle the stater on the pump.

The Sonnax valve body was removed, and they installed an OEM VB with a heavier duty accumulator plate and another part, I have since forgotten the name. This is a job that they perform on other RFEs when a Revmax is not used. They recommended Revmax over Sonnax. The Sonnax VB was removed because the transmission range sensor was not correct for the 66RFE. Their VB mechanic pointed to the flat manual portion of the slot at the end of the diagonal. He felt the slot was too short and was from an earlier RFE. Looking at my Sonnax VB, it has a triangle above the manual slot. Looking at images online, it looks like there is another sensor with possibly a longer slot. Perhaps this part is also called a cam plate?

Perhaps the forum can clarify the effects of the differences with the transmission range sensors. Moreover, would this have caused some of the codes? The VB mechanic said that the shorter length may have caused the solenoid to not function properly and as I looked them up, most of my codes seemed to do with the solenoid.

I have driven the truck about 200 miles since the rebuild and there is a noticeable improvement in performance. Hopefully the forum can weigh in to help others when considering the Sonnax VB. For me, the next VB will be a Revmax.

 

[Brent 1955]

After reading many posts and taking away so much great information from the Ram forum, I decided to share my RFE experience to maybe help someone else, and/or get some advice. First post, have a 2017 2500, 6.4.

My transmission went into limp mode while pulling our ORV 21DBS camper in January 2022. Pulled to the shoulder and turned the truck off, waited, then back on, and for the rest of the trip it didn’t happen again. I took it to the dealer when we returned. They rebuilt the transmission at 64K miles under extended warranty. From invoice, dealer repair included:

-Valve Body pkg
-Plate pkg-planetary thrust
-Converter-torque
-Bearing-needle roller
-Pump Kit-Transmission oil
-Clip-power distribution center
-Gskt pkg-transmission
-Cooler-transmission
-Nut-U
-Transline oil cooler lines bundle
-Screw-hex flange head
-Filter pkg
-4x4 filter
-ATF+4

From dealer invoice:
“…teardown using group a and b, replace transmission bearing and shim…perform overhaul, replace all clutches…clean, inspect, and test all bearings, gears, pistons, and seals, reassemble transmission…replaced trans cooler line bundle…replaced transmission cooler, filled, quick learn, retested…”

That started my RFE research on this Ram forum. I was lucky to find a warm day in February 2023 to do the job with truck at 88K miles. Parts I used to replace OEM:

-Royal Purple 10-2867 (paint removed)
-Mag Hytec RFE45
-ATS thermal bypass
-Lubelocker gasket
-Sonnax CH146
-Redline C+
-Revmax steel fitting (for screw on filter)
-Mopar Sump filter

Unfortunately, after 5 days of easy driving my roundtrip commute of 40 miles, while exiting to home, truck shuddered for a second and went into 4th. The next day dropped the pan, thinking a filter got loose, everything looked good and tight. ALFAOBD codes: P0731, P1521, P1776, P2706. Currently, truck sits at a transmission shop.

So, can I ask a question? Since you spent all that money on a rebuild for alight transmission for pulling why didn't you look into a 68RFE instead and see if they would interchange with your setup. It is a little heavier I believe. I have over 600,000 miles on mine I change the fluid and filters every 75,000 miles and I pull a 34 Montana 5th wheel. Another question when your pulling do you use your tow and haul?

 

[HEMIMANN]

When I was looking at replacement valve bodies, I saw RevMax cost twice as much as Sonnax but still used Sonnax parts, so I figured why not use Sonnax?

I don't know if or why RevMax would be better.

I never did the change out because I'd already tuned and didn't want to redo the whole thing again as the new valve body requires a reset and relearn.