Do not use your Jake brake in our town,OR ELSE!!!

Umm, thats what I said...

 

I agree about coasting when it is appropriate, but I’ll still use the Jake anytime I want to slow down, instead of leaving the Jake off and using the service brakes.
Jakes are made to slow the truck down, be it a downgrade or flat ground. My rule is if I need to slow down or stop I will initially hit the Jake, and if that doesn’t slow me fast enough then I will apply the service brakes. I have pulled up to a stop sign or red light before without ever hitting the service brakes, just the Jake. I have a switch on the shifter that turns the Jake on and off. It’s there, I don’t understand why you don’t use it anytime you need to slow down or stop.

 

Well, being from Minnesota where the ground is snowed or iced up about 7 months of the year, and a jake will spin you wildly out of control on it, it never got to be an "all the time" habit. Not to mention that in a good chunk of Minnesota and Wisconsin they are actually illegal to use in town, again, never got to be a habit.

If you have used it to the point where you have as good of control over a jake as I have with the service brakes, good for you. How much fuel have you wasted in your life learning that skill?

Not a day goes by I dont see some rock hauler that doesnt know how to turn a jake off pulled over. But again, why use it? All it does is wastes fuel (over all) on flat ground.

Tips for Using The Jake Brake

Jake Brakes are commonly used to control the truck speed while descending a steep grade, rather than using the foot brakes, saving wear on the brakes.

 

No, it's not. You said it only costs you fuel mileage if you use jakes when you don't need them.

I'm asking why ANYONE would do that.

You also said that jakes should only be used on downgrades. I disagree and so do a lot of people here. They can be used ANY TIME the truck needs to be slowed. I do as the above poster said, I use jakes and whatever the jakes can't do the service brakes can cover. That minimizes the wear on the service brakes. I've slowed from 72 to 15 getting off of an interstate before using jakes only. Only using service brakes from 15-0. The jake cutoff on my truck is 15 so at 15 they stop working.

The only time I don't use them at all is in icy conditions or wet roads with a light load or bobtail on wet roads.

 

How many miles does a driver get out of a set of brakes when they do vs. don't use their jakes? I'm thinking there's people that ride their brakes about the same as some ride the jakes but there's also a group that falls somewhere in the middle by decelerating only when necessary regardless of method. I'm not sure the category of those who aspire to blast the miniskirts off of all the haters single moms by using the full force of high rpm straight piped jakes but that category seems more interesting.

 

How much skill does it take to properly use a Jake brake? It's not rocket science, if you want to slow down, use the Jake, how much more simple can it be? Of course you'll burn more fuel if you are constantly are slowing down with the jake below cruise speed and using the throttle to catch back up, but who in their right mind drives like that? It takes almost zero training not to do that. It's not like you have to drive for years before you "master" the Jake, it should take a new driver half a day at most.
No, I don't use the Jake while cruising down the road, just like I don't ride the service brakes cruising down the road. I just can't understand why you think it's a improper use of the Jake if you use it coming up on a speed limit drop or a stop on level ground.

 

I think there’s a happy medium I try my best not to use my service brakes and I don’t kick the jakes on at higher RPMs either simply because I don’t like putting the extra strain on my valve train and I run a lot of 2 lane and run through a fair amount of small town I don’t really need to be drawing a lot of attention
I’d like to think I can roll p to stop signs with out hardly touching the service brakes and not running the ### out of my jakes
That’s just my opinion s all

 

Ok, lets agree on a couple of points then shall we?
First, Jakes dont work worth a #### below 1200 rpm, agree?
So in order to run it down to 15mph, you are either using an auto transmission, or you are using the clutch (or shutting off the Jake and turning it back on every time you downshift). If you are using an auto transmission why are you even using the jake when you could manually click it down a gear at a time and do the same thing? It would be pointless.

So Im going to assume you are using a manual and hitting the clutch all the way down. So you are wearing out the clutch to save your brakes?

Makes sense to me

Or, you arent bothering to downshift in which case your jake isnt really doing anything at all after you drop below 1000rpm...

Brake shoes cost around what 250-300 a pop and get about 300k miles out of them? (I have disc brakes all around that are good for 1 million, so it isnt something I worry about). That is 1/10th of a cent a mile. How much money are you saving by using the jake in the manner you speak? Even if you DOUBLE your shoe life, you are saving 1/10th of a cent a mile...

 

Maybe for your truck they don't do much below 1200, but they do plenty on my Volvo below 1200. They do MORE above 1500, but do a nice job all the way down to 8 or 900. Considering I only have 13L of air compressor to work with, it does pretty good. Not as good as the Jakes on the '22 Plasticadia I drove though. That was almost scary. Bobtail it would pull stuff off the bunk.

Ok, manually putting an automatic down a gear or two does not equal using the jake brakes. The fact that you think it does shows me you've never driven an auto with jakes and have no idea how Jakes even work. Jakes are more than just downshifting. And on top of that, the manual button for Volvos is way at the bottom of the dash just above the cup holders. I rarely manually shift for that reason. It ain't like the paddle shifted LT's and Cascadias.

Brake shoes are 300 a pop, and I don't know about your truck, but mine has 6 pops. That's a lot of money, not to mention wear and tear on the trailer brakes, another 4 pops. It's not just the money, I'm in a company truck. It's the DOWNTIME for replacement and also the chance of being popped on a DOT for pads out of spec. The less you use them, the longer they'll remain in spec.

 

Jakes functioning is fully adjustable in ECM. Speed, RPM, delay for gear shifting, even the force pattern. Or full power from the beginning or rising from low to highest level set by the driver.
During the Jakes engine doesn't consume any fuel because injectors are switched off.