Transmission issues it the mountains

TxCrushinJKUR

TxCrushinJKUR

Member
We left DFW area of Texas Wednesday evening..stopped in Amarillo then onto the Rockies (Breckenridge) area. As soon as we hit the snowy altitude my JKU seemed to start having transmission problems. I lost power and it appeared it wasn’t shifting as my RPMs rose till I backed off at 6000 RPMs. My Jeep has 107K and just got back from my axle swap to 60s with 5.13s. I figured it was just my trans going out and took it to a shop. When I wasn’t filling out paper work the guy mentioned he’s seen vehicles, including his own, which have to adjust to the higher altitude and it can take about a week before they start behaving normal again.
They called and said everything checked out and that’s exactly what it is. I’d think if they wanted to screw me they could’ve easily said it needed rebuilding etc but I’ve never heard of this issue. Anyone have any experience or knowledge of this?


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That sounds fishy to me. The only thing i've heard about driving in high altitudes is a v8 is preferred over a v6 due to the thinner air. Why would the computer need a week to adjust? The long term fuel trim should compensate within minutes.


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I have seen vehicles that are calibrated at sea level with the OEM BARO or MAP sensor that experience symptoms at higher altitudes. And vice versa, vehicles that are calibrated at higher altitudes experiencing issues at sea level. You'd think with modern day technology that software would be programmed to detect that and adjust accordingly but I have seen issues from this before. Not sure if that's what your issue is or not.
 
I know when I drove through CO on RT70 I was pretty much screaming up the mountain passes. I tried to manually shift cause I was around the 6k rpms as well. It would not upshift unless I slowed down but as soon as I gave it gas it would shift back down again and screaming away we went. My temp never rose above the 3/4 mark though so I chalked it up to the altitude. Jeep ran perfectly fine once we got through the passes and the rest of the week then did the exact same thing coming back through. I wouldn't sweat it.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I’m gonna chalk it up to the altitude for now and see how it is on the way home.


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Mine did the exact same thing when my transmission oil overheated in the mountains. Got a hot oil message on the dash and lost power until I let it cool. I figured it was a fail safe so that I couldn’t destroy it. I added a trans oil cooler and it hasn’t happened since.
 
Jellymon said:
Mine did the exact same thing when my transmission oil overheated in the mountains. Got a hot oil message on the dash and lost power until I let it cool. I figured it was a fail safe so that I couldn’t destroy it. I added a trans oil cooler and it hasn’t happened since.
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Strangely enough we came down the mountain this morning and all seems back to normal. It was still doing it on the up hills until we got about 30 minutes down the mountain. Made it to our stop in Denver and did about 80 the last hour of the drive. I never had any lights come on and had no active or stored codes. Thought the JK already had a transmission oil cooler


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TxCrushinJKUR said:
Strangely enough we came down the mountain this morning and all seems back to normal. It was still doing it on the up hills until we got about 30 minutes down the mountain. Made it to our stop in Denver and did about 80 the last hour of the drive. I never had any lights come on and had no active or stored codes. Thought the JK already had a transmission oil cooler


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It does, but mine being a 3.8 the trans oil cooler was too small and inefficient. The “hot oil” message on my dash actually wasn’t there from the factory, it was installed later as a recall. I believe the trans oil overheating on the 3.8 is a known issue, and instead of installing a larger or extra cooler as the recall, they installed an idiot light instead. :doh:
 
Jellymon said:
It does, but mine being a 3.8 the trans oil cooler was too small and inefficient. The “hot oil” message on my dash actually wasn’t there from the factory, it was installed later as a recall. I believe the trans oil overheating on the 3.8 is a known issue, and instead of installing a larger or extra cooler as the recall, they installed an idiot light instead. :doh:
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Gotcha, makes sense


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