2007 Ford Freestyle. Keep or sell?

carm_rodr

We bought a 2007 Ford Freestyle back in April. I loved it at first because it's my grandma car! But I didn't know there were so many issues with the CVT Transmission. So far nothing, but then I noted that the rpms weren't going above 1.5 even at 55-60 mph. The Ford mechanic stated it was due to some wheel bearings or such. They are currently fixing that but he also said there was nothing wrong with the transmission. He also stated that if you go online there are many recalls for other calls with CVT transmissions. Just because there are some folks who have had issues does not mean I will. I'm debating whether to keep the car and sell it for a loss (1/3 of what I paid). And feedback is welcomed!

Mr_Shiftright

" So far nothing, but then I noted that the rpms weren't going above 1.5 even at 55-60 mph. The Ford mechanic stated it was due to some wheel bearings or such."

why don't you try explaining this again? Your car can't go 60 mph at 1500 rpm, and wheel bearings don't have anything to do with the transmission or how it behaves, or how fast the car goes for that matter---so maybe you heard the mechanic wrong, or ???

In any event, why would you have to sell the cat at 1/3 what you paid for it if there's nothing wrong with the transmission? --unless there really is something wrong and he didn't notice. Generally, symptoms would be that the car will downshift itself at highway speeds, or won't accelerate (shift up) when entering a freeway.

To answer your question, yes, there have been quite a few complaints about the CVT in this car, but of course that's just a certain percentage of owners. How many miles on it?

If you're getting nervous, then maybe you could sell it before you hit 100,000 miles--that way you would have gotten the best years out of an iffy transmission. I noticed that most of the complaints I saw were for cars over 100K miles. So bailing at 99K might improve your odds.

No sense selling it for a huge loss--you might as well just repair the transmission if it goes bad, because for the $4,000 or so it would cost to rebuild it, you aren't going to get very much in a used car for $4K.