Hi. I may be the only person in the world with this problem; I couldn't find anything here or googling. My problem is that the engine/AT-transmission management system won't downshift to avoid engine lugging.

There are a lot of situations where I'm going 20-30 MPH on a slight up-incline. I'm in traffic so I can't speed up.

At this car speed, the engine speed is 1500 or below. If I keep a light touch on the gas pedal, the engine lugs. As I said, I'm in traffic, so I can't step on the gas to force the AT transmission to shift down to a lower gear (higher number).

To avoid the lugging, I manually shift my AT into second. I shouldn't have to do this but that's the only way to get the RPMs up at the same car speed.

I've talked to my dealer twice about this but he says "everything is in spec." I still manually downshift because I don't want to wear out the main bearings prematurely.

Anybody else have this problem? I'm trying to set up an appointment with the regional guru.

Bob