F150 automatic tranny gear selection

I have a 2004-5.4 towing about the same,,sticker says 4500, Only thing I do is if it seems to search for a gear,,4-3 then back to 4 then down to three and i am climbing, I with take it off OD, and let it do its thing,, I have a Scan Gauge and keep my eye on trans temp.. If it starts getting hot I back off, but the computer seems to control it ok so I let it go,, not able to lock it into any gear other than Low.
If you are concerned, look into a shift kit witch will let you shift manually.. But I have not seen the need yet...

Agree with all the above, not to mention trans fluid is also going faster rate thru trans cooler which equals less heat build up in trans. At least on mine on a f-350. And my 5.4 in a small class C leaves driveway at 10,280 pounds. Going over mountain passes we have on west coast no problem, except as you mentioned. The gas gauge does move more than I like it to.

3800 rpm is about 60 mph. 3400 is about 55 mph. I can let off of the gas to control speed, but I know that this truck can pull the hill in 3rd gear without all of the rpms and noise.

facory wrote:
2006 F150, 5.4L Automatic trans. Towing a trailer weighing around 4200 lbs. Very often this truck can pull an incline in third gear but insists on downshifting to second sending the rpms from 2400 to 3800+. I feel this is unnecessary and only uses more fuel.

Question is: is there a way I can lock it in 3rd gear and prevent it from downshifting to 2nd?

3800 in 2nd gear? How fast is that? In my truck it is about 70 mph. IF you don't want the engine to turn those RPM. Let off as you go up the hill. You don't have to top the hill at 70 MPH.

If you don't want it to shift automatically then maybe you need a standard. Let the auto do its job.

Let the tranny and puter do it's job.

Believe it or not the puter knows better than you 95% of the time whether you think so or not.

Computers are really good at their job 95+% of the time.