Pajero Owners Club of South Africa

I am finding that my auto box (3.8v6 Gen3 LWB 2005) changes up normally, sometimes to much so, and sort finds that overdrive quickly.
But whats getting to me is that long hills definitely require a manual intervention down to 4th and sometimes 3rd.
If I stomp down on accelerator for it to gear down automatically, it takes its time to gear down, sort of reluctant. Gears down and readily changes back up and into overdrive ratio, if you let off the accelerator a bit.

Is this normal? vehicle seems sluggish, no errors codes according to mechanic.

Maybe I need to drive another 3.8 to compare.
(just did a 4730km road trip and used 1016L) (how much fuel would be accounted to front bumper, bash plate and rock sliders?)

another strange thing I found is that when idling through a National Park, I was getting about 18-19L/100, on open road dropped a bit to 17.5L/100. a bit of town driving it dropped to just below17. it can get down to about 15L if you take foot off at every given downhill etc etc
coming back from PE to JHB hoofed it a bit in sections up to 155'ish, the onboard computer only says 17.5 to 17.9L/100.
It has been chipped, with branches and pipe,

Sakush,

From what I read in your post am I more concerned that your 3.8V6 isn't putting out, rather than the box not doing it's thing.

"It has been chipped, with branches and pipe"
Are you sure all is well with these modifications, because a 3.8V6 can be accused of many things, but "sluggish" isn't one of them.