VTECnology

I know about all the transmission problems out there. here is what mine does. when I'm driving down the interstate at about 60-65 and slowly push the gas to get by somebody sometimes it feels like it just drops into gear. I don't know how else to descibe it. It does it pretty harsh, almost like somebody that doesn't know how to drive a stick would do it to a manual. it does it in the 4-5 downshift and sometimes in the 4-3 downshift. if I slow down and try to get it to repeat it, it won't do it. like I said, it only does it when I slowly get on the gas, and not that often. If I drive the snot out of it, it shifts like it should. maybe I'm just paranoid but this is my first automatic car and I'm not really familiar with them. also, on the rare occasion that I am driving slow it seems to hold on to gears longer than it should.

russianDude

I think this is normal, shifting gears can not be 100% smoooth. Do you feel hard shifting when you continuously and smoothly accelerate from a complete stop? If it shifts OK under normal conditions, then u are fine. Dont expect car to shift smooth when you accelerate really fast

VTECnology

that's the thing though. when I drive fast it is smooth and when I accelerate from a stop it shifts fine. It's only when I slowly depress the gas at speed it downshifts harshly. like I said, it doesn't do it all the time so that makes me wonder if there is something fudged up

russianDude

Hmn... I dont know, its probably useless to take it to your dealer, they will tell you its fine. Maybe this is how it supposed to behave, our cars have computers which make decisions for you, maybe computer just gets confused and does something strange.
My car sometimes gets confused when I suddenly hit the accelerator pedal, it takes computer like 1-2 seconds to think about what happened, before engine begins to rev

plainjane clp

What you are experiencing is normal. Our cars react differently to different RPM rates and speeds when upshifting or downshifting. I like to take my foot off of the gas before I down to 3 and then step on it. This gives me the kick I'm looking for. If I keep my foot on the gas and go from 5 to 4 to 3 the shift is relatively smooth, once again depending on how fast I am going. Upshifting is always pretty smooth. I usually shift at around 5.5K RPMs when I use my sport shift. We have a interesting transmission that takes some familiarity to get it to do exactly what you want it to do.

superdds

i agree with plainjane. don't sweat it too much. what you don't want is to have it stuck in 2nd. that's what happened to my fiance's tl. dealer gave her a new tranny.

lead_sled_dog

I think you may be experiencing the torque converter "unlocking." I believe our TC will lock up to improve gas mileage and you are feeling it unlock. That's my $.02

Mercury

I disagree. I have the same issues and when I have the time, Wayne and Jens I need you to take a ride with me. I can duplicate the problem and can probably have one of you do it as well. I reported this a week or so ago and still have it. I got the tranny fluid changed at 15,000 or so and it was different then. This started occurring in the last month and hasn't left. Fluid level is normal, I've never had the need to add and won't. It doesn't happen on the incline or decline and happens when crusing normally and just look for a little more speed. If you look for alot there is no problem with it. Have it checked. I don't think it's normal at all.

HellaWhat

Take time and read your manual, Go to the section about the tranny and Sportshift and it says right there that if u leave it in auto and then accelerate hard, the computer will drop it into a lower gear for you.