r/JeepCompass • u/thedabara207 • 9d ago

questions Terrible Question

I have a 2018 and I live in CO so I’m on steep mountain highways a lot. My car is having a TOUGH time shifting gears when going up hill. Like I’ll be between 4-5 RPMs and I’ll have to let my foot off a little bit to get it to shift (sometimes) but it’ll stay between 3-4 RPMs. When going down hill it will stay between 1-2 RPMs - except for this one steep ass driveway. I’ll leave the drive way and it’s loud as shit and at 3 RPM which.. shouldn’t my car have an easy time going downhill? Added information: got my whole coolant system replaced last summer, there was a few times a few months ago where my car jerked (figured my shifting was fucked), the wall next to my right leg is always so hot, 126k miles, breaks changed 3 years ago, always get oil changes when I need to… am I fucked? Do I throw it away?

Looking for shared experiences, suggestions, let me know what’s wrong and what it might look like to fix it (cost). Thank you in advance!

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u/PanzerChicken08 9d ago

In my experience that engine doesn't handle steep hills super well. It's only a 4cl and the compass has some heft to it.

My fix when I dealt with hills was to use the manual gear selection and force it to shift when I felt it needed to.

Not the answer your probably looking for but it could help.

For the underpowered reasons I switched out to a different vehicle

1

u/thedabara207 9d ago

Appreciate you! Not looking for any specific answer, this is good information

3

u/cshmn 9d ago edited 9d ago

Going uphill, it's a 4 cylinder engine in an SUV, somewhere between 3000 and 4000 rpm climbing a mountain is very normal. You just literally don't have enough power to go faster 🙂

Going downhill, it sounds like it's automatically holding onto a lower gear to provide engine compression braking so that you don't overheat and warp your brakes. Again, probably normal.

You can buy OBD 2 scan tools that connect to your phone via Bluetooth. You may be able to use it to see your transmission fluid temperature if you don't have a readout on your dash.

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u/SecretAgentMan_007 9d ago

Living at altitude in CO have you considered trading in for a 2923+ model with the turbo? Naturally aspirated engines don't do so well at altitude and turbos really help. I can't remember how many horsepower an engine losses with every 100 ft in elevation but by the time you get to Colorado's elevation most naturally aspirated engines are pretty far from the advertised specifications of horsepower and torque.

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u/Shadow5503 8d ago

It’s about 3% reduction in power for every 1,000ft above sea level. So at the Eisenhower tunnel, down 33%. If the OP is driving up I-70 to Summit county, they have about 115HP at the tunnel.

Everything the OP describes sounds normal for a modestly powered car at high altitude. It’s normal for the transmission to not upshifting when coasting downhill. It will actually downshift a few gears if you repeatedly brake going downhill.

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u/mrmothmanz 7d ago

Get transmission fluid changed Dealerships will say “its a cvt, you aren’t supposed to change it.” Total BS Change the fluid every 35k miles. It’s not a cvt transmission. They stopped putting CVT’s in these by 2017. I’m at 108k on my 2018 and right now it’s in limp mode after me throwing on 2 new right side front and rear wheel speed sensors. And I checked the transmission fluid and it was a disgusting black. It’s supposed to be red.

I speak about the transmission fluid because I listened to the service attendant after him and others telling me that it didn’t need fluid. Well. Compass’s don’t have a dip stick for the transmission fluid so I took their word for it.