07 Yukon Denali Excessive Shifting With Cruise

Big Tool · June 1, 2007

Since my dad first got his denali we both have noticed that the thing does alot more shifting than necessary while on cruise. At first i thought it was due to the 6sp transmission. However today me and my pops went and looked at some land outside Natchez MS. On the way back i drove the 3hr drive home. The truck has plenty of power to maintain and acclerate up hills without the cruise on, but with it on it is constantly shifting. So I put the denali in 5th gear which is about identical to my 07 6.0 with 4.10's Overdrive. The denali is actually running slightly higher rpm's but that thing was still constantly shifting to 4th gear with the cruise on. And we were not in hilly terrain at all. I am just wondering if any of you guys with denali's have noticed a similar problem and if so what can be done about it. I'm sure if it's a common thing, you escalade guys will be experiencing it also. Just looking for some feedback before i take it in the shop for him.

ChrisNJ · June 1, 2007

have an 07-sierra denali with same drivetrain. have not noticed this problem. what mph are you cruising at? If your doing less than 65-70 i could see your problem because the trans attempts to keep it in 6th way to long, and in 6th it would be doing around 1500rpm, way to low to do anything but go down hill. But you did say you tried cruise in 5th too, so that doesn't make sense, of course unless your doing 55. I think their priority of mpg and max HP numbers do not benefit this package. this 6.2-6sp could truly be awesome with a little more shift delay and a little mor torque moved down lower. is is pretty good now however. it easily wants to do 90mph, which is dumb for this middle age guys daily driver. would rather have the lower speed/rpm performance. i haven't had it on cruise much, but when i do it's always in hilly terrain so a downshift from 6th to 5th is expected. without cruise on in heavy traffic i like to keep it in manual 5th so the r's and some more torque are available more so than in 6th. and if i really need it, 5th to 4th is fairly quick vs. 6th to 4th which takes to long and the tranny seems to have a little trouble with it.

i'm taking a long 3-4 hour trip next week in hilly PA-NY so I'll report back after I have it on cruise for a while.

ChrisNJ · June 5, 2007

Just did the interstate drive from NJ to Syracuse NY, hilly. At 70-75 cruise on, it goes to 5th on any decent hill, if the hill is steep it will go to 4th to keep it at speed, but this only happened once or twice. Overall it did not 'excessively' shift. On level ground it would never shift, even slight hills 6th would pull it fine. I think you have a problem.

Big Tool · June 10, 2007

Just did the interstate drive from NJ to Syracuse NY, hilly. At 70-75 cruise on, it goes to 5th on any decent hill, if the hill is steep it will go to 4th to keep it at speed, but this only happened once or twice. Overall it did not 'excessively' shift. On level ground it would never shift, even slight hills 6th would pull it fine. I think you have a problem.

Thanks for the response chris. I'm going to get it in the shop asap. He's already got over 50k miles on the stock tires without a rotation. They are wearing very badly on the inside. I wonder if you're sierra would shift less because of the extra hp of the sierra vs. yukon denali models. also the pickup is probably lighter. Either way it shouldn't be shifting so much in 5th.