Engine bucks when going up a hill

goldfang

New Member
Dec 29, 2020
2
0
1
oregon
89 LX when the engine is lugging when going up a hill the car starts to buck and lose power. If you shift to D2 and the RPM increase it stops bucking. Its like if you had a manual transmission and you where trying to start to move in 4th gear. Dies anyone have any ideas?
 
My ‘91 Gran Prix had a lose wire in the electrical bundle that did the same thing when driving up a grade. I ended up tying the bundle upward toward the electrical connector to keep pressure off the connector. Never figured out which wire was the problem.
 
Don't 'lug' the engine, there is a rpm area where the engine works. Then you have gear manipulation that makes it hard on an engine to push the car along, think like starting out in 3rd gear,
Check for codes, there could be codes that have not triggered the cel.
Now would be a good time to tell us it has a 471 GMC blower and ran ten o's in the quarter back in '97. :jester:
Oh, changed the plugs lately?
At what RPM is lugging?
 
  • Like
Reactions: limp
So this is an AOD car and you are lugging it up a hill in Overdrive?

I mean, overdrive in an AOD is like 5th gear in the manual trans cars. It’s not meant to go up a hill. With a manual car you would downshift to 3rd or 4th gear to go up a hill. Same with the AOD. It should really be used for highway cruising at speed, and D should be used when driving in hilly areas and towing and such. Pretty sure it states this in the owners manual.

when my car was an AOD, I drove it only in D, and only shifted into OD on the highway. The OD in these trans is rather weak and can burn out with heat, so use it only when the conditions are proper.

D = 1, 2nd and 3rd gear, where 3rd is 1:1 like 4th gear in a manual.

OD adds an overdriven 4th gear equal to 5th in the 5-spd manual.
 
  • Like
Reactions: General karthief