First gear runs out of steam pretty quickly, so I don’t see an issue with going uphill in second. I pretty much just leave it in 4 for uphills and just put my foot on the floor if it’s not going fast enough. Descending I will drop it into 3 from time to time but almost never down to 2, even when towing.

-Mike

 

First gear would be hitting redline over 20 mph. What kind of hills are we talking about where you need to go into 1st? That's usually reserved for rock crawlers going 5 mph. You may have a shift point issue, where it isn't kicking down under load. Usually, a drain and fill and/or a transmission flush will improve this issue.

 

Mainly on a set of steep switchbacks that lead up a mountain I live on it's not everytime but I do plan to drain and replace the filter in the next week to see if it fixes the issue

 

When it doesn’t automatically downshift, is the pedal floored?

 

I have to have the pedal about halfway to almost to the floor to keep it goin then when it doesn't I have to down shift to first to have enough power to get up the hill

 

I ask only because I’ve seen threads with people listing lack of power type issues, and it ultimately came out they simply didn’t press the pedal enough.

If the pedal is ALL the way down and it still struggles but you can manually downshift it and it’s fine, that definitely would point to an issue.

If the pedal isn’t all the way down, then without a scan tool gathering data to compare engine load and pedal position to the pre-programmed shift points then it’s much harder to say if there is or is not an issue.

 

How fast are you going when this happens, in MPH? And when you have the pedal halfway to the floor or more in second gear, what RPMs are you at?