Drove my wife's car today and while trying to turn into heavy traffic, punched the accelerator and the car responded with a big hesitation. Do I have to switch to power at these times or do I need to have the dealer check the tranny?

 

No, this is a known annoyance. The ECU learns how the driver drives and adjusts accordingly. The problem is, the ECU adjusts leaning towards grandma mode. You will need to reset your ECU either by disconnecting the power off the battery (I don't recommend) or doing the procedure for ECU reset (do a search on the forum) that only takes a couple of minutes.

I don't recommend cycling power from the battery because that can mess up all your settings on the radio, seat positions, steering wheel positions, rear view mirror positions and other settings. It can become rather painful to recover from that, or you might get lucky and it won't affect them (don't count on it though).

 

Here is the procedure to reset the ECU without losing your seat and stereo settings:


1. Get in your car and insert key. (It doesn't matter if you close the door or not.)

2. Turn the key to the on (not start) position.

3. Press the gas pedal to the floor.

4. Hold the pedal to the floor for five seconds, then turn the key back to the "off" position (don't remove the key), then release the gas pedal.

5. Wait 2 minutes.

6. Remove key.

7. Done

Yes it works. Done it many times. Works on all years.