Hi All,

TE Auto, whenever I coast down a hill and the car starts picking up speed. The transmission decides to down gear from 4th to 3rd or second depending on my speed. Then when i get to an even surface and slow down, it goes back to the higher gear.

Seems to not like picking up speed on it's own

Any experiences, I tried a search and couldn't find anything on here or a general Google search

Its a design feature - makes the car less reliant on brakes, instead using engine braking. Go down a steep, twisty descent and you'll appreciate the feature (without having to manually select the gear which is presumably why you bought the auto in the first place) :-)

That is the INVECS adaptive shifting system. Its a feature of your car that analyses road conditions, your driving style and how much throttle you're using to select the correct gear. It is just engine braking for you so you're less dependant on the brakes when going down a steep descent. The car has merely recognized you're driving downhill, and is compensating for you ;)

. . . . even if you don't want to . . . . . . I'm not used to engine braking from an auto. lol

Does it do this in tippy mode?

Our land cruiser does that, but only if you touch the brake while going down a hill, bloody good for towing the boat down a hill...

We had a BF falcon ute at work that would do this when going down hill. About the only smart thing that transmission ever done.

Does it do this in tippy mode?

No. In tippy mode the only time the TCU overrides the currently selected gear is when you brake to a stop, when it will change back to first.

wow, I had no idea it was a feature. I just assumed the GB was broken. Show's how little I've driven automatics.

Cheers guys, one less issue I have to worry about =D

It's supposed to do this as well going up hill, ie hang on to a lower gear longer. Probably hard to tell as you have more throttle on. Do notice it going up a bridge ramp though. Does the gearbox have a tilt sensor in there somewhere? lol Probably not, just taking note of differences in the input and output sensor values.

Do the 5 speed auto's do this aswell? or just the 4 speeds.

my old hilux ute and my new falcon ute do this but only when the cruise control is activated

Do the 5 speed auto's do this aswell? or just the 4 speeds.

My TJ 5 speed does not do this. Must shift it into manual mode if I want to down change.

My old TE used to do this, shift back to 3rd and 2nd down a steep hill.

They removed the feature in the later cars as it gives better fuel economy coasting down hill in overdrive rather than slowing down in a lower gear causing the driver to use the accelerator if it slows down too much.

yes, well it does seem to slow the car down more than I'd want it to..

kind of an annoying feature, if I want the car to stay at a constant speed, I'll do it myself pls..

Thanks again all

The earlier model TE/KE series did it. They had a more aggressive INVECS programming on them, but it was later compromised to prolong the lift of the automatic transmission.