Transmission Concerns

[daq421]

Ok..
So during a trip to a friends house I had the strangest thing happen... Twice while climbing a hill (fairly steep hills) the transmission just refused to kick down into a lower gear for acceleration.. Both times I was doing less than 50mph.. I'd floor the peddle and... nothing! Finally I down shifted manually to second then back to drive and it started shifting normally again..

Anyone else have this happen?
-Peter

[07WYarisRS]

I know with trucks with locking TC's you have to let off the accelerator completely before pushing it down. otherwise it just won't downshift.
Now I don't know if the yaris has an auto locking torque convertor or not but I've never gone up a steep enough hill to notice.
I do know of one locally i'll try to hit later this week to check if my car does this. I know if i'm on the HWY and shove it to the floor it drops down into 3rd

[punch]

Originally Posted by daq421

Ok..
So during a trip to a friends house I had the strangest thing happen... Twice while climbing a hill (fairly steep hills) the transmission just refused to kick down into a lower gear for acceleration.. Both times I was doing less than 50mph.. I'd floor the peddle and... nothing! Finally I down shifted manually to second then back to drive and it started shifting normally again..

Anyone else have this happen?
-Peter

umm I think you could shift to 3..??

[Dawn Eshelman]

I drive up a fairly steep mountain every evening (the shortest distance between sea level and 10,000 ft. in the world). I drive an auto (1st I've driven in 20 years), and am disappointed in the lack of power, and auto shift. Sometimes when I'm driving down the mountain in the morning, I will have to brake, and the car will downshift. It seems to take forever for it to upshift again...

[eTiMaGo]

From what the technical manuals in the DIY section mention (page 21 of the Chassis manual), the auto transmission ECM detects when the car is going up or down a hill by the difference between the actual acceleration and the acceleration that is expected by the ECM at the current throttle level.

But, from what I see, it will not downshift you automatically, but it will prevent the upshift into 4th gear. So, you're still on your own if you want to downshift before your engine loses too much speed.

Pretty clever stuff really, I never cease to be amazed by the ingenuity of modern automatic transmissions. Yet, they still lack the direct feel of a good old stick shift, or the brains to handle hills on their own without slowing to a crawl :p

[07WYarisRS]

Just tried it with my car last night and YES this car will hold the shift in top gear going up a steep hill.

Like I mentioned before that's a good thing because it stops a LOT of wear on the transmission and in many cases saves fuel.
Shoving the pedel to the floor did very little if anything but letting off the throttle then appling the throttle again allowed it to shift down and motor up the hill.

Sounds like a normal thing.

[Katana]

I think it's normal.