a bit Worried... help please

[dantry]

hey guys,

i may be just worried over nothin but i may have a problem on my hands. this is my first winter with a diesel and i just may not know whats happening. its really cold here near pittsburgh and its about 10 degrees outside right now and hasn't got above 20 since yesterday. is it at all possible for the tranny to act sluggish because of the cold, and at a higher speed like when you get on it goin down the high way??? i was on my way to work this afternoon and it acted sluggish at a high speed then it did it tonight on my way home, just worried that its something seriously wrong. and just dont want to get all worried and then find out its just because its cold outside.

[mschn99]

trannies act very strange...and can be very sluggish/slow to engage in temps below 20 degrees....

when i drove home to montana last week for christmas i had the same symptoms in my girlfriends toyota camry we drove there......the tranny was VERY slow to engage and didnt seem right for the first fifteen minutes or so of driving..

[strokerboy73]

Does it stay sluggish once the truck is warmed up? And how long do you let your truck warm up ?

[dantry]

the truck warmed up for about 25 min before i left work. i didn't know if the tranny fluid was at all capable of gellin up at all. i mean it would shift all the way up but it was actin almost as if it didn't exactly want to hit that next gear or downshift that fast when passing. and it never did this before, just today when it became extremely cold

[03f250stroke]

if i dont let the truck warm up enough or not very much at all its like trying to drive my truck through a brick wall..it just wont really go anywhere anytime fast. This is also my first winter with a diesel and I noticed that the cold weather makes the truck act a little different. Im just monitoring everything and trying to leave for places a few minutes earlier if I can.

-Evan

-Evan

[dantry]

so your kinda havin the same issue with yours then huh? cuz i mean right off the start and goin through the gears its runnin perfectly fine, its just on the highway when i'm goin to make a pass or even go around cars up a hill when i have to get on it a lil it seems to not really want to go as good as i'm use to it. i just dont want to have something go wrong with the tranny

[03f250stroke]

what other mods you got done to your truck? I mean my truck is like sluggish when im first trying to get her moving, almost like it sounds like my truck is about to stall like its a stick and im about to stall it. But once I get going and I hit say the highway or whatever the truck is getting warmed up. But if your truck is pretty well warmed up and its still doing it then you may have a different prob. what year is it and what mods does it have?

-Evan

[Bamfster]

Keep in mind that letting a vehicle warm up by sitting and idling will not warm the trans that much if any. Its best to just let the engine run for a few to get the fluids moving and build some heat and then drive it easy for the first few miles.

[vitalidle]

Yeah mine is the same when its cold. Almost like your trying to move a tank. When the fluid isn't warmed up yet the shift points seem to be at higher rpms as well.

[Renegade-Diesel]

From past experience the 2 biggest killers of automatic trannies are high heat in the summer and really cold in the winter. As long as the shifting seems to get normal after you have driven for 15 to 20 minutes you should be okay. If it still shifts weird then you may want to have it checked out by the dealer. You my 2 cents worth.