When I make a pass and really give'r on the highway the car downshifts nice and pulls very well. Then when I quickly let off the gas to avoid overtaking lesser vehicles the car stays in the lower gear keeping the RPMs very high (5000+). I usually bump the autostick to + once or twice if it went to 3rd to resume cruising at normal RPMs. Is this normal?

 

Yes, it is an auto stick so once you shift it yourself it does what you tell it to do. But once you hit it to the right until "D" then it will be back into automatic.

 

Yes, but I'm leaving it in Drive the whole time.

 

This is normal. The car keeps you in the power band so you can "get on it" again. This feature threw me off the first time it happened to me, too. The transmission will shift on it's own eventually, if you don't do it yourself.

 

It say's 3 on your dash, but you didn't manually downshift it?

 

Ok cool thanks Thumper, and no the display stays "D". I'm letting it kick down on it's own .

 

You should try a SRT8. Those have an aggressive tranny module. They do the same as listed above plus the harder you brake the more the tranny downshifts. Great from braking in to a curve and stays in a low gear for exiting the curve. Lots of fun for a bigger car.