Tip of the day: disconnect your battery if you're sluggish

On the way home from work yesterday (in a humid 90 degree day, AC blasting), I slowed down, then accelerated while turning. The truck barely wanted to downshift. It felt like I had no power whatsoever. No warning lights or anything.

Monitored for the rest of the commute. Same deal: truck is very slow to downshift and feels like a dog.

I disconnected the negative terminal for 30 min, reconnected it, then went for a ride around the block and made a highway run. WOW! Truck is noticeably snappier, even before the sluggish issue.

Interested in seeing an impact on mpg. But performance is noticeably better.

 

Didn't it used to be that disconnecting the battery for a long period, leaving a car totally without electricity, would clear codes and/or cause the ECU to have to "re-learn" the engine?

 

That's what I was going for.

My guess is my sluggishness was due to ECU / tranny logic that was thrown off by something.

 

yeah that's how I got rid of my check engine light on my camry before trading it in a few weeks ago

 

I do the same thing when my truck starts then stalls right away. Just disconnect negative for 5 mins and starts like a queen. Only been twice but nothing was wrong with fuel,air or spark so ecu is my thought at the moment.

 

Could it also be a bad connection to the battery terminal? Disconnecting from the terminal and reconnecting could have given you better contact resulting in better grounding.

 

If it's a on-going issue there's something wrong I would think.