I drive my 02 ES300 pretty reasonably. What I've found though is that the car shifts into 5th at 40mph and stays there unless I press the accelerator more or manually put the shift selector into 4th. My frustration is this. Why does the car shift into 5th at such a low speed which then causes the car the "chug" along. It's very annoying. I contstantly am having to put the gear selector into 4th to avoid this. Do any of the transmission upgrades, "fixes", for the 02-05 ES address this issue?

 

It's called EPA fuel economy ratings. Faster you get into high gear, better the mileage (on flat roads). Of course, as you suggest, performance suffers. Just a little thing your salesperson forgot to mention regarding the electronic controlled transmission while pushing the highway milage number.

 

I've heard that the best fix is to "drive it like you stole it for a few weeks". The transmission learns your driving habits and makes shift decisions based upon that.

 

yea, he's right. I've learned from other guys on the ES forums that the ECU is trained to adapt to your driving habits. If you reset your ECU once a while, you'll notice a change in the performance.
example: after reseting your ECU, you drive like a grandma, your car will be adapting for optimum fuel efficiency vs. you driving like 'you stole the car for a few weeks' where the car will adapt for performance.

so have fun testing =)

 

Do some real maintenece on the engine, reset the ECU & drive it the way Toyota engineered it.

***** to the wall.

 

my ES used to do that same kind of joggle around 40mph. The tranny fix from last april does remove the joggle but you end up with a tranny that only stays in 1st and 3rd for very short times. I got used to it. tranny still shifts smoothly and you don't get that nasty redline with no acceleration.

steviej