Owners Forums for Ford and Volkswagen MPVs / SUVs

I am new to this forum. We bought an automatic Ford S-Max second hand last year and within a few months we started having a transmission error message first thing in the morning when it was cold and the car would then go into limp mode.
If we turn the engine off and open the car door (!) the car then restarts fine and drives fine, although can be a bit jerky at the beginning.
I returned it to the garage we bought it from during its three month warranty and they told me that there was no error on the car's computer and that everything was fine.

I have just put the car in for its annual service and MOT with a local mechanic, who says that there is an error code of P0766 on the car's computer. Shift Solenoid D performance or stuck off. He advised me to contact another garage that specialises in gearboxes. They have told me that this is a common problem with S-Maxes of the same age as ours and that it is a problem with the Power Shift gear box. He says that he doesn't do automatics anymore, but that we are probably looking at £4,000-£5,000 to pay to change the gear box if we can find anyone to do it!

Has anyone else had this problem? Can anyone give me any advice? We only have one car.

I'd read the top post to say the warranty probably already has run out, unfortunately.

There are many posts on the powershift boxes on here - https://www.fordmpv.com/smf2/mk3-ford-galaxy-ford-s-max/i-might-be-coming-back-again!!/msg18947/#msg18947 covers the general theme of them (not serviced on time, and problems start happening).

Given you have an error code, if you can find someone that will touch it, Given you have a fault code, you might be in luck on that front as you can give them the code to get an idea before they even see the car (it suggests a specific part is the problem rather than a vague description of the problem at least).

P0766 paired with s-max brings back a few matches on Google - This one in particular looks worth a look https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=220&t=1710116

Your probably looking realistically to get someone to fix the box you have, rather than swapping the whole box, but even so, its not going to be particularly cheap.