(always in D, not DS)

I've only had my G for about a month now but noticed something that's starting to bother me. On my ride to/from work there are a few hills. I've noticed while going downhill when I apply the brakes, the car will downshift and use the tranny to help slow/maintain my speed. BUT it doesn't consistently do this. Sometimes on the same exact hill, it wont downshift at all. Sometimes it will downshift 2 gears and hold at like 5krpm and even stay like that after I let off the brakes and try to accelerate when the hill levels out.

How does your car react downhill when on the brake?

 

On a particularly steep downhill part of the road, when following several cars I often manually downshift as hitting the brakes does not do the same (will slow down but won't downshift). Always thought it was normal and yet another great reason to get shift paddles installed - downshifting with paddless will eventually revert into drive though so still need to move the shifter into manual.

 

But what I'm saying is, mine DOES downshift itself going downhills. I will touch the brake on a downward hill, and it downshifts about 80% of the time. I'm talking about a noticeable downshift into a very low gear that keeps it around or above 3500-5k rpm. But sometimes it does nothing. Can someone try this for me, go down a hill with the brakes on in (D), and go down the same hill in (DS) with the brake applied. Post up if your car downshifts in both cases, or not at all.

 

mine does the same thing. im not worried. just assuming its part of the adaptive transmisson

 

That's a good point that may make easy comparisons difficult. One of my wife's past cars had an adaptive transmission and she always complained that she could tell when I'd been driving it because it would rev too high before upshifting and then downshift when slowing for turns.