I've posted a few other topics here about our new 2012 Pathy, thanks for the help with everything so far. Now I have a new one that is puzzling me.
2012 Pathfinder, 140k, V6, Automatic, 4WD
This weekend we finally gave it a proper shakedown drive, over the Hurricane pass loop near Silverton, CO. Car did great, pretty much no issues except for one thing. It was in 4 low, 1st gear. On the last (very) steep climb over California pass, what I am guessing was the steepest hill of the day, the engine just completely lost power. I was probably around 3k-3.2k rpms, and it just instantly dropped to around 1500. The engine didn't stutter, or feel like it was going to die, it just felt like the car was deciding to drop the power for reasons of it's own. It felt like my wife's Jetta when traction control feels the wheels slip and just kills power to the engine. Traction control was off (or the dash light said so anyway) and no dash lights came on during this incident.
It did this probably 3 more times while I tried to get to the top of that section of trail, including a weird lurching hop for a couple seconds while I tried to just make it go. Eventually I tried proceeding at a lower rpm, and kept it around 2.2k-2.5k and it did not do it again. The rest of the day was completely uneventful.
Scared the hell out of me, with my whole family in the car. This is the kind of driving we bought the vehicle for, so I need to figure out what the problem was. I've done some internet searching and can't find much on this issue. This was around 12,600 feet, so I'm sure the engine was struggling a little, but it didn't have any issue at all starting from a full stop on the steepest trail of the day.
Any insight is very appreciated, TIA