The overdrive in my 2005 E150 recently stopped working. If I leave OD on, the engine will simply rev without any further acceleration once it reaches about 40 mph.

If I turn off the OD, the van drives just as it should. Forward and reverse work fine. It shifts between the first three gears as usual.

There have been no warning lights or error codes.

I guess my question is, being that this van is getting old and I'm not exactly thrilled about potentially replacing or rebuilding the transmission, how bad of an idea is it to continue to drive it with the OD turned off? How long will it last without the use of OD? Is it best to simply get it fixed asap? Is it also useless for towing now, regardless of the fact that OD should already be turned off when towing anyhow?

I'm just trying to understand generally how bad this situation is for my ability to drive the van with 3 gears instead of 4. The reason that I ask it that the repair shop I spoke with seemed to potentially exaggerate the need for a repair, suggesting that I couldn't drive the van without OD during a 30 second phone conversation.

Any help is much appreciated.

-Thanks

 

The reason there was an OD position was for better fuel economy.
The one thing we don't know without actually looking inside the trans is if there are any broken parts floating around that could cause problems .
Might pay to just drop the pan and give it a close look for any pieces in the pan. If so , remove them and clean it and reinstall pan. Might as well change the filter ,gasket and add new fluid.. You might see just what happened when examining the valve body. Other than that , just no OD.

 

Thanks for the info. That is much more in line with what I was thinking.

 

I had an '85 I drove for several years with no OD. Would still be driving it except motor locked up.

 

Driving your van with the overdrive off will not hurt a thing, you will just have to visit the gas pump more often.
Could be an issue with the O/D solenoid. If you drop the pan, you are half way there and might want to try replacing it. Unfortunately, once some metal particles get magnetically attracted to the solenoid, there's little chance of it working again with just a fluid change.