2012 jeep patriot 2.0L- Gears slipping but only after stopping during long drives

Question

I have a jeep patriot 2012 which uses a CVT transmission. recently I have been going on a lot of long road trips. I noticed that when I first start to drive the car, there is no gears slipping. Even when I reached the interstate, the car would drive fine, when the engine temperature starts to heat up, the car will also drive fine. It is only when I start reaching the 6-8th hour drive on the road when I feel the car start to lose power.

For example, one of the indicators for gear slippage would be low transmission fluid, but when I went to the mechanic, they told me that the fluid is full. I used my car to drive short distances too and that does not seem to have any problems. It is only when I drive for a very long period of time that the car would start messing up.

Whenever I am at a stop light after driving for maybe 8 hours, in 1st gear the car would struggle to accelerate despite the rpm going up around 3k rpm. This would also happen during reverse.

I would just like to know if there is any other components that might cause the gear to slip because the mechanic said that the fluid seems to be adequate, and there are no check engine lights or anything on.

Answer 1

You may have sediments in the bottom of the transmission pan. With long drives, the flowing automatic transmission fluid (ATF) circulates and pushes those sediments into the transmission filter, thus restricting proper fluid/ATF flow. Once the car is shut off, the sediments drop back down into the pan. I've had this problem myself.

When was the transmission fluid and filter replaced? If you can't remember, it's time for a change. In fact, if it has been 50k miles or more, it's time for 3-5 changes because you only replace about half of the fluid when the transmission is serviced. Start by having a mechanic "drop" the pan and change the filter. After a week of driving, drain the fluid yourself without changing the filter. There is an easily accessible drain plug on the back of the transmission, just measure how much you remove and add fresh ATF. On the final drain, add one bottle of Lubegard CVT Recharge and Protect.