05 Transmission Downshifts Down Hill

[azhodge]

traded in my 2000 LX470 for a 2005 LX470, i guess you could say I like them. I went down a hill with the vehicle in drive and when I hit the brakes it downshifted. what is this breaking with the engine stuff. How obnoxious. like the car doesn't already get low gas mileage. is there a way to stop this. also got a verzion nokia 6256i that allows phone downloads of the phonebook into the Car, only one entry at a time but it does work. regards

[Jim_Chow]

It supposed to do that on the newer ones. My '03 doesn't downshift, but it doesn't upshift, either (holds the same gear and the same speed given a constant grade...I like that). I manually downshift to 4 or 3 as the grade dictates. Don't worry, you're not burning any more gas with the engine at higher rpms going downhill, unless your foot is on the accelerator. :-) It'll prevent one from burning up the brakes, though.

[monarch]

All newer Toyotas are designed to downshift automatically on hills when you hit the brakes. Even at freeway speeds.

[fraserbluff]

It is a bit of APITA. Once it has shifted, the only way to get it out of the 4th is to accelerate and let it shift down itself.

The other issue I have is when I use the Cruise control, It will up shift at 100ks on what I would consider a slight slope and the engine revs will go from 1950 to about 3000, and that *BLEEP*es me off. If I do the shift manually the shift goes to about 3000rpm then the engine drops about 150-200rpm, then down to about 2100rpm then back to the cruising speed of about 1950. I am intrigued why there is this apparent drop in revs in 4th gear if the change is done manually. It would appear that the torque converter locks up in 4th as well as 5th. Is this likely.