Is the 68fre any good?

[WBacon]

I am still on the fence about the new truck. How is the new transmission? I am sure it drives nice but will it handle the power in the long run? Can they handle a chip, other upgrades etc? Is anyone tearing into them yet and upgrading them with any luck?

 

[Jim W]

The 68RFE is great trans for what it was designed for. There are several users who have put on thousands and thousands of miles on them towing with no issues. The unit will take slight power increase such as from lower power settings on programmers.



I have a Smarty installed for over three years set on power level 3 and I tow a 11k 5er with it. This is about a 60 HP/120 LB-Ft increase over stock on a 08 truck.



Now will it take more torque and HP yes/no? If you do 4 wheel drive lunches in high horse power and drive the truck like you stole it. The transmission will fail. My son worked on a guy's truck installing the Smarty Jr for him. He set the Smarty on a tow tune, low power increase. Within 24 hours the guy had to have the truck towed to a dealer to install a new transmission in the truck. My son asked the guy what did he do, will he was doing burn outs in farm fields sling mud all over and had set the Smarty on the highest setting. He burned the transmission up doing stupid stuff. If you are going to act like a 4 year in a sandbox will something will break.

Jim W.

 

[WBacon]

My current 06' 48re is the stock original with 155,000 on it. We tow a 14,000# trailer a fair bit. I run a tst as well. Always turn it down with the trailer and go easy. I am the only driver so I guess the 68 will be fine for me.

 

[HBarlow]

Tulsa Okie, a TDR member who hasn't posted in a year or more put over 400k on a 68RFE as a hotshot hauler. I think the transmission failed and had to be replaced around that mileage but he was probably pulling a heavy trailer everyday.

 

['strokeThis_'07]

There is transmission tuning that seems to do pretty good for making the 68 last. B&G as well as H&S both offer trans tuning; I know of one truck that runs H&S, an Industrial Silverbullet, and I believe 100hp nozzles on a stock trans, sled pulling and daily driving, and I think he finally killed the stock trans late last year after 2+ years of beating on it.

 

[WBacon]

Ok. This is all good news. I guess it is safe to say, that in general, the 4th gen trucks will be embraced just like the last 3gens. There is no fall off of loyalty. Maybe an increase!

 

[dirtguy]

I have a 2010 with 107000 miles on a transmission. I would guess 75% of that is towing a 30' dual tandem with either a skidloader or a backhoe on. To this date, (knock on wood) no problems. My truck is a dually totally stock.