Hi everyone,
as a new Jeep owner I have a question.
Everything runs great on my 95 Grand Cherokee Laredo, except when you need sudden acceleration to pass say a really slow moving vehicle, or coming off a ramp to join traffic. Then, it seems the Tach gets jumpy, and the engine hesitates to shift into that higher gear,(yes it's an automatic and no it's not 4WD). Otherwise, great and runs really smooth at highway speeds. I'm thinking it's a Speed Sensor issue, but since I'm new to owning a Jeep I'm not certain. Would like some opinions here first, before going to mechanics.
Thanks all....
Divn

 

I'll bet you have the 42re trans, yes? My '00 WJ does the same thing. It seems to be trying to make up it's mind what gear to go to. I don't put up with it anymore. I just manually downshift it and that seems to be the whip on the carriage horse, if you will. After a while, you get to learn which gear to shift it to for how much scat you want without overdoing it.

I've had mine decide to go to first when all I needed was 2nd. It's very unsettling when you have a big rig about to run you down while trying to merge.

 

Try adjusting the TV cable (aka the kick down cable), there should be instructions somewhere on the forum if you use the search.

 

It didn't seem to make any difference on my WJ, Busted. That's the first thing I did. Sometimes it behaves, other times I give it some throttle and all it does is moan and not shift, so I give it a little more throttle and it kicks down to 1st and 4000 rpm! What I've been doing lately is punching the O/D button coming up the on ramp and if that's not enough, I pull it down into 2nd manually.

It seems to do the same thing on cruise. When I already have the cruise set for 65 and I hit a bridge on the interchange that's high and windy, I'll tap the brake to release it, the after the curved bridge and I'm merging with the other highway, I hit "resume". It will come out of O/D but if that's not enough to satisfy the cruise computer, it'll kick down to second, but it takes a short period to decide. All in all, it's just not very smooth on transition. I think I could do better with a stick! Hell, my old Chevy truck was smoother. Then again, the 350 had more torque.

 

Thanks for the info and answers everyone,
I have decided to go ahead and take it to a shop, (someone I know who did extensive work on our MiniVan and charged me 1/8 of what the cost would've totaled elswhere) and have him run a diagnostic. Where we live I dont have a garage, and most of my tolls were borrowed away by another brother in law and not returned. So, I really don't have much to work with- altho I will try the TV cable in the meantime.-
Div