Automatic transmission

Thanks Drtdevl, appreciate it

 

Here’s the issue with that logic though. A lot of trucking companies are like 95% automatic now. If not 100%. So a driver learns on a manual in school gets his first job where he stays for three years or something and drives nothing but an automatic. He was pretty green on the manual just coming out of school to begin with. So he decides to change jobs and all he’s driven since he went to school is automatics. So even though his CDL isn’t restricted, you really think that driver’s gonna want to go jump in a 13 speed when he only drove one a couple times at school four years ago or something? Lol

The industry itself is messing it up by trending to only automatics.

 

You make it sound like picking up shifting is hard or something. If a brand new driver that has never driven a big truck can learn it in a day or two, a more experienced driver can remember how to do again within a few hours.... tops.

 

Its like riding a bike.

I was almost all automatic from 1995-2014.

I drove a 13-speed in 2014/15, with the occasional 10-speed thrown in the mix (and one 18-speed). I then went automatic until 2020, when I jumped right into a 10-speed for vacation coverage.

I drive a desk today, but I can also jump out into one of the 10-speed shag trucks ion the yard and run it effectively.

 

I drive both, mostly manual. I’m just saying what I see out here.

 

Yep. Spent 4 years driving the desk, and I could still shift better than most of the other guys the 1st day back in the truck. Muscle memory lasts a very long time.

 

I have driven everything from the 7,9 and 10 speeds, Super 10s, 13, and 18 speeds. As well as the old "top two", the 3 pedal autos, the auto that KW likes to use, (with the gear lever on the dash, several push button autos, and the DT12 auto from Detroit. The only problem I ever had was going from an 18 to a 13 on oil field trucks, sometimes I would try to split the lower half on a 13 speed. (Didn't notice the splitter color) The only other issue I ever had was when an Eaton 3 pedal auto upshifted on me coming down Loveland Pass with 45k pounds of Hazmat junk. That is the only auto I will not drive. Good thing is, they are rare these days.

 

When slip-seating in the oilfield, I got around that problem at idle before leaving the yard by trying to move the splitter in low range. If it would move, it was 18, if not, it was 13.

 

I hate em and treat em like a rented mule.

 

I got around it, usually at about 4mph, trying to split to the top half of 2nd gear, until I realized why the splitter was a different color. No one taught me, just tossed me the keys, and I had to figure it out. I learn fairly well by that method.