Auto gearbox sluggish when cold

[Guest bigbullhead]

If I leave my is250 out in the cold and start it up and drive it it struggles to move until warmed up anybody else noticed this?

[scudney]

I can't say I have with mine to be honest 

[Texas]

The auto gearbox won't use the higher gears until it (gearbox ECU) deems that it is upto sufficient temperature, but this shouldn't account for 'sluggishness' ( if that's what you are saying) when used from cold, with a car that has a large lump of an engine such as this V6 then it is good practice to not 'push' it until sufficiently warmed up. Is this something that has stated recently or has it always been like this?

just re-read and you state 'struggles to move', have you dis-counted binding brakes?

[ambermarine]

The gearbox transmission fluid is not designed to run at cold tempratues and one reason why the transmission fluid is run through the cooling fluid radiator is to warm it up quickly and reach the optimum viscocity for the clutch plates the early LS400 would not kick down on flooring the accelerator until the engine was near to running temp and was sluggish at start up in cold weather.

If the drive is sluggish when the engine temp is normal you have a problem with your transmission fluid try and get it renwed if it is past 100k miles use.

[Guest bigbullhead]

Just the cold I do garage it normally and it’s ok but I left it at work a couple of days last week and noticed it so all seems fine just need a 5-10 mins warm it it seems

[is200 Newbie]

It is just the cold as stated above - you can actually see this when you select the display for the gear it is in when you are first driving it - the display will show 5th gear while in auto until the ECU gets the signal that it can move to 6th. A1 to the info given above and it is right. I would  not worry about it.

[Hondaman]

As said in the previous responses. It's also in the owners manual. My car won't change up to 4th or 5th gear for at least 4-5 minutes until up to operational temperature. It is a built in safety feature to protect the transmission.