Shifting problem 98 SL2

My 98 SL2 seems to have trouble down-shifting, or at least it has trouble
deciding to down-shift.

When I go up a good sized hill the car boggs down and I give it more
throttle to maintain speed. I end up going all the way to the floor before
the transmission will do anything and the car violently shifts down 2 or 3
gears.

I have been to the retailer a couple of times for this. They had no answer
the first time. The second time I went in they basically told me that the
car needed to driven harder (which can't be the case) because of being
"carboned-up". It apparantly wasn't giving any codes for whatever is going
wrong.

Is there a possibility that there is no tranny problem and it's more a
throttle position sensor issue? or maybe another transmission control part?

Any advice would be great.

 

You can try cleaning out the throttle body, the stuff comes in a can, and
spray into the throttle, while revving the engine.

 

There have been posts here referencing valve body problems. You might
try some Google Group searches and/or contacting Joey at
. My long-distance guess is that the
problem might be more in this direction than in the engine.

Ken