Automatics..for newbies..really???

Meh, to each his own I guess. I thought I would hate them until I actually spent more than a week driving one. Now I can't see what the fuss is all about. It ain't any better or worse than a manual. Just a bit different as far as I'm concerned. I have never once experienced any kind of lack of control issue but maybe that's just me.

 

God, I'm so tired of this #### comment. Please oh great one, what control do you have in a manual that I don't have in my autoshift or in a automatic? What is this mystery level of control? Is there some special thing it does for you?

 

Autoshifts might be the coming norm but now having driven both, I prefer to stay away from them.
I admit the auto is nice in cities and heavy traffic. But they are a pain in limited traction situations. At least the ones I've driven. Can't start out in higher than 2nd gear. I don't know how many times that got me stuck where I'd have been able to move had I been able to drop it into 4th or 5th and work it out.
Also had a long long day when a starter went out on me at a customer. Naturally took a couple of hours for road service to get there, then another cold wait while he diagnosed the problem. He offered to pull start me, no can do with an autoshift. So another long cold wait for the towtruck to show up and a long ride to the KW dealer where I got to take my ten in their lounge.
So both myself and the company I drive for are going away from the autoshifts and back to the sticks!

 

Atleast you got my name right though.

 

you do realize the gear you can start in was programmed by your company at their request to prevent you from damaging the equipment. Also, if you paused for a moment, you could generally put it in reverse and select high range. The first generation autoshifts, if set for economy mode, all had max of second gear start. 3rd gear start was programable. The current generation autoshifts almost all have 3rd gear start. But I'm curious, were you planning to ride the clutch and start in 4th or 5th while loaded? Does your company know your planning to abuse the equipment and burn out a clutch or the trans? In 8 yrs with my 1st gen. autoshift, I can only think of three times I got stuck on snow/ice. Once it wouldn't have mattered if I had all-wheel drive, I was still stuck til the 10 ton Deere tractor drug me out. The other two times, both bobtail and both because of no weight. With my current truck, traction control, power divider, and I'm free.

 

Well, I know you can be a smart ###. Now, can you answer the question.

 

I'm not disputing your claim that the top starting gear is programmable. If it is, it's not programable by the driver. So no use to me or the shop mechanics.
As for abusing the equipment, all I can say is that if I had been loaded, I wouldn't have been stuck to begin with. I would and do start out in whatever gear I consider best for the situation. In 40 years of driving equipment ranging from minibikes to 64 ton tanks I've never ruined a single clutch or transmission.

 

I had one for a while....I ###### up and bought a truck with one in it based on a 30 minute test drive.

I thought I would like it until I ran it for a while.

I never did like the lack of control over shifting points...Even when using the "manual" mode it would never let me select a lower gear until the RPM got down to a certain point and when I had occasion to shift to a lower gear on a downgrade it was a pain in the ### and I had to use the brakes more than I wanted to.

It would also "Jake shift" and I can't stand that.
They told me that "Jake shift" was not something they could/would program out of it.

I tried to have it set up better and more to my liking but it just never really gave me the options for control that I enjoyed with a manual.

The main reason that I started truck shopping early was because of that transmission...The other reason is that it was a T2000 and that was the other "BIG MISTAKE".

I'll never even consider another autoshifter....Or another droopy nosed truck.

 

unless your carrying around a $3,000 piece of diagnostic repair equipment, nothing that changes the parameters of an electronically controlled engine or transmission are going to be asscessible by the driver. As for the mechanics, the dealership has that ability, if your company self maintains, then perhaps they should buy the equipment. When they first came out, they required a special diagnostic tool to work on, now, it's a software program that can be loaded on a laptop. My boss has two sets, one for our pre- '08 trucks and another set of software for mine ('09) and the trucks that we are ordering. He can do basic diagnostic work, set various parameters (engine speed, max road speed, cruise settings, shift points, as well as other items), major diagnostic work requires a trip to the dealer, where they have a dedicated laptop with even more intense software for diagnostic work. The software we have, $900 for both sets, Mack updates them every month, usually twice a month. Shift starting points can be set at the factory, by the dealer or the trans. manufacturer.

The part that I find interesting, no one can point out this mystical "control" they are missing. Aside from a downshift point. My truck downshifts automatically between 1,100 rpms and 1,300 rpms, I can manually downshift it below 1,350, although yes it will fight me on it. But, I consider that more a point of knowing how to drive better and not needing to force it down any sooner.

One thing I found on that full auto truck I drove was in addition to manually controlled jakes, it also had hill descent control. Set the speed you want and the computer won't let it exceed that speed. At 65,000 lbs, I set it to 37 mph for going down Wolf Creek Pass and actually found myself having to give it throttle because the computer was slowing it too much.