Auto vs. Manual Transmission......

It says what was done to get it stopped.

Turning the ignition off did kill it but it sounds like the transmission went into neutral when he did that since he lost power steering, which means the engine stopped. He would have been fine if he had done that earlier and not overcorrected and jackknifed it.

 

Have the newest electronic junk trucks gone to electronic steering the way that the cars have?

I think most cars nowadays have the electronic steering I know at least GM did it and the way that it works is when you turn the steering wheel it sends a signal to the computer that sends a signal to some electronic Gizmo that it sends a signal to something else and probably something else to something that's electronic to turn the wheels.

Well let me tell you how many cars went off the road crashed the steering went out of control how stupid. That is so stupid I have to say it again. How stupid! People got killed, people got hurt, because some stupid engineer wanted to save .0001% horsepower.

I would hope that on giant 80000 pound trucks they wouldn't be such morons.

Back in the old days when we had trucks that had manual steering they were only hard to steer if you weren't moving. Even moving at a crawl made it much easier to steer.

So I think that if the truck had a regular steering box you'd be okay at 60 or 70 miles an hour to slow down.

And here's a thought about brilliant technology. The engineers that created the Detroit 2 stroke knew there was a chance those engines could run away. So did they create some crazy complicated nonsense? No, they put a flapper on the intake and you pull the lever and it shut the engine down.

That was simple and it was brilliant. Now it's complicated and it's idiotic. And it kills people.

The problem is that they are relying on the computer to do everything and computers fail. At a certain point enough is enough.

Like I said earlier-

STUPIDITY PREVAILS!

 

I would support any organization that works to kill this electronic idiocy that's taking over vehicles and constantly killing people.
It needs to be stopped, enough is enough !!
They can't even figure out how to keep cell phones working without constant updates. Pffff

 

People want things. They clamor for new features. Every new feature requires a half dozen corrections to keep prior features working.

But I'll take the "electronics revolution" over the alternative. For every problem they may create, they make several other vast improvements.

 

Everybody has their opinion but I see Zero Improvement.

Here's the truth of it. Nothing is more reliable than a mechanical diesel engine and a mechanical manual transmission. There is nothing to improve. There is nothing that will make it any better.

But if you take that perfect mechanical engine and you start to add silly expensive nonsense components on to it all you do is add to the expense and add to the complexity. When you take that perfect mechanical engine and you add thousands and thousands of dollars of nonsense electrical BS obviously Common Sense tells you there is more there to break. There's more there to fix. There is more there to cause you problems. It's only common sense. And Transmissions are the same.

Here's an example of complete and total stupidity. I can't tell you how the junk trucks are today but when I drove for Penske one night I had no heat. I was a driver not my truck to fix so I head out to Penske. Well the mechanic informs me that those trucks have a rheostat that sends a signal to the computer that sends another signal to the motor and there probably are other relays and nonsense that go along with that but apparently that controls your heat. He took the passenger seat out and worked on it for a while and then just gave me another truck.

So if your rheostat is bad you have no heat. If your computer's bad you have no heat. If your motor is bad you have no heat. If your relays are bad you have no heat. If you have a bad ground you have no heat. If you have a wire that rub something you have no heat. If your computer just feels like having a glitch you have no heat. That's an awful lot of unnecessary expensive scenarios to have no heat.

I guess I'm just a silly bugger because for myself I have a cable that just runs a simple valve sort of like a ball valve that turns on and shuts off the antifreeze coming into your heater core. Another cable Works your door for your defroster and your vents.

So if I flip the hood and within 5 minutes I"ll be on my way. Then I can spend 20 bucks for a cable, put it in and I'm finished.

Who in their right mind would want to spend maybe $1,000 or more to fix something that is that simple. Relays wires computers Motors.... complete and total stupidity for something that works with brilliant simplicity. But now it is asinine stupidity. You guys can tell me all you want that you love computers but who wants to spend more money than you have to on something so stupid? And it's not a little bit of money it's a massive amount of money. It's actually a STAGGERING amount of money.

That is only one tiny example of all of the waste and all of the complete and total unnecessary nonsense that only will cost you money without benefit. And there is stuff like that all over those trucks in the engine in the cab everywhere and the transmissions also.

I see absolutely no improvement whatsoever, in fact it's backwards. On those type of trucks simple little repairs cost you a fortune.

Only the people that take your money benefit. The repairs are more costly more difficult to diagnose and they give you more down time

All of that is the opposite of the goal- reliability, low cost of repair, and less downtime.

Larry Moe and curly have now taken control.

 

Okay. If you say so. But I'm certain I dealt with much more downtime running new trucks in the early 80's than I do today and the past 5 years running new trucks. That's dealing with breakdowns as well as routine maintenance.

If you haven't run new trucks lately, how would you know their reliability? I can't account for those who buy crap brands or can't take care of their equipment.

 

09-12 are a nightmare. I don't see how the wiring on anything newer is going to last long enough.

 

@STexan

Hey if it works for you I'm happy for you.

All I can tell you is I just now watch the news and Chrysler is recalling a whole bunch of vehicles because they're computerized crap won't shut the cruise control off and people are having accidents. This kind of thing happens more often than anyone realizes or would like to admit and it happens with cars trucks everything with a stinking computer. Remember the Toyotas suddenly accelerating and killing people?

You may be a fortunate individual. But look back on these forums here and see how many guys have spent $5,000 $10,000 and on and on and on because they had a bad wire. Or because their computer went crazy. Or because nobody could find the problem. There is one Gentleman on here that had a truck was still under warranty and spent $24,000 before he found the problem. I doubt that ever happened in the history of mechanical engines. Hell, you probably could have just about had two crate engines brand new for that price.

Like I said earlier nothing is more reliable and nothing is more dependable than a mechanical Diesel and a manual transmission. Adding things on top of that is just more things to go wrong.

Never would I buy a new truck nowadays ever under any circumstances.

But I know a guy that bought a tri-axle dump truck in the mid-80s with a Cummins big cam engine and that truck still runs every single solitary day today and he's been running it all these years. I would love to buy a new truck like THAT.

And it isn't just about one person's experience. It's about things like an electronic injector costing almost $400 when a mechanical injector cost 65.

It's about having to go to the dealer to diagnose certain problems. It's about having to go to the dealer to be able to change the governed speed of your truck or how long it idles etcetera etcetera. It's about a transmission that has the capability to leave you on the side of the road for a whole bunch of reasons that has nothing to do with gears or clutches.

It's about wiring that has nothing to do with the mechanical engine but the wiring on the electronic engine cost what $3,500 the computer is $3,000 that's all completely insane. It's about complex systems that don't need to be complex they were fine without the complexity. Some people may never have a problem. But the people that have a problem have real crazy expensive insane problems with massive down time and extremely bad fuel economy.

I am genuinely happy for you then it worked out for you. But there are a large numbers of other people that are not nearly so fortunate and probably are nearly bankrupt because of it. It's all right here in the forums.

But I am glad that it worked out for you. And I hope it continues to work out for you. I would never wish those kinds of problems and expenses ever on anyone.

Truck on!

 

ON also