OK, so I am developing a real personal issue with the automagic transmission in my 2003 Tracker 4dr with the 2.0L.   Whoever setup the shift timings needs to try living in the mountains sometime -- this is ridiculous.   When going up any grade over about 5% (which I do frequently), even when standing fairly hard on the gas, the tranny happily leaves me in way too high a gear (2800RPMs-ish) and I loose speed rapidly.  But, then if hammer it to the floorboards, it will kick it up to the right gear, but unless I keep my foot all the way down and end up quickly accelerating up the hill to speeds faster than I wanted (at which time I have to let up, loose a bunch of speed, and the cycle starts all over).  Any other vehicle I've ever owned, you just keep pressing harder on the throttle until the auto tranyy figures out how to hit a gear that will let you hold a constant speed.

Setting "power" to on helps ever so slightly, but not much.  Overdrive Off helps in certain RPM ranges, but at other RPM ranges it's also useless.

Anyway --- some of this is, I'm sure, the 235x75R15's, but to be honest, it had this problem back with the 205x75's too, it's just worse now.

So, 4.88's is what it came with from the factory.   My question is -- if I have it re-geared to 5.125's (lowest option readily available, if I'm not mistaken); is that going to do enough to make this problem significantly less annoying?   Or does it sound like maybe I've got some other problem that needs addressing (which I've wondered; when I say this is annoying, I mean, I've never owned a vehicle that did this kind of thing)?

just as increasing your tire size made this "worse", a lower gear would make this "better" but probably not any more than it was made worse by your tire size. 

Logically with just a regear - this should just happen at a different speed and rpm than it does presently

*disclaimer - not well informed, but from what little I do know, it doesn't seem that it would make much difference

Also, but Not sure if it applies to trackers/vitaras, but some newer auto trannies have a sensor and valve built into them to prevent gear hunting on climbs, if ours have them, might explain your issue

That's kind of what I was thinking -- probably not much help to go from 4.88's to 5.125's.   

I do wonder if there is a sensor that's broke or something -- I mean, even my old 91 Ford and my 99 Toyota (both autos) had no problems holding any given speed on a hill.   But this Tracker is either accelerating flat out or fighting a rapidly loosing war with gravity (or gear hunting about every 10 seconds if I want to punch it, and let off, and punch it, and let off in an attempt to keep a vaguely constant speed). 

Anyone have any idea about the sensor in question (or lack thereof on 2003 Trackers)?

Thanks,

i'd suggest simply selecting the gear you want to run in up the hills, can you not select 2nd or 3rd in the auto's??  from what i recall this seems to almost be a requirement in north american 4cyl vehicles in my experience.

Your automatic sounds just like mine (2000 Tracker). Selecting the gear you want with the shifter is the only way around the problem. It's really annoying trying to climb a hill with cruise control as it will up and down shift the whole way up. From what I understand it's to get maximum fuel mileage by trying to stay in highest gear as possible to keep rpm's low.

Going from 4.88's to 5.12 does help a noticable amount.

Of course, a V6 also helps to overcome taller tires.

Thanks for the feedback guys.  Yeah, I'm getting good and shifting the auto transmission like it was a manual.   I think, though, that it's just crazy/insane/ridiculous though, that Suzuki/GM shipped this truck with these shift timings.    It's not a lack of horsepower or too tall a gears in the diffs (as evidenced by the fact that downshifting manually and it hums right up the steep grades with ease), and it's not the big tires (it had the same issue on stock size tires), it's strictly just some totally lousy programing of the transmission controller.   At least, they should have made the "Power" switch kick it over to a timing that didn't suck in the mountains.

I know, I know, it's not the end of the world, but dang it, that's annoying.    Anyone know if you can re-program the shift timing stuff in the computer? (and if so, how)?

Thanks,