Starter companies with manual transmission?

Bottom line, autos trans just make it easier to focus on your phone or other things more. Put your feet up on the dash and relax.

 

Had my liscense 8 years and never drove a stick. If the guy wants too drive a stick more power to him.

 

The reverse issue and the getting stuck issue are the same problem. It is the abrupt clutch engagement that is the problem. It gets you stuck quicker as you have no feel or ability to adjust the clutch engagement point.

I drive off road all the time. No doubt about it, auto will have you looking for a tow long before a manual.

The reliability problems are well documented. Servos, wiring harness, computers, inertia dampeners, and clutch engagement mechanisms, are all known to fail and are non existent in the manual.

I know a couple dump truck fleets that pulled the automatics out of their trucks at their expense just to save maintenance costs. Not to mention the getting stuck problem and the backing problem.

 

To be fair, manuals have problems that autos don't have.. Clutch replacements, adjustments, etc etc. Not to mention most "starter" company's trucks go thru a few clutch brakes until they get a driver that doesn't destroy them.. Just to name a couple of the issues.

In the end, it's prolly 6 of one and a half dozen of the other .. The OP is wise to want to learn how to drive a manual- anything that will make you more employable is a good thing... I suspect 6 months from now the manual VS auto decision will drop down on his list of deciding factors when choosing his next gig, but to each his own

 

What years were the trucks.....just curious? The ones that I see everyday are KW 2007's and Mack 2013's. The drivers have said to me that the transmissions have had almost zero issues, and they have a lot of them.

I watch these trucks operate in the pit everyday and they rarely get stuck in the loose stuff, while the other hired trucks get stuck, or are bunny hopping all over the place when the go to take off.

 

The ones I have driven recently are 2013, 2014, 2015? The 2013s and 2014s I have driven since new. I have seen improvements but not enough to call the problems solved.

The dump truck companies (and also tanker company) that I mentioned pulled the autos out of 2010-2015 Petes.

 

Cool....thanks for replying. I was speaking with 2 of our drivers with auto's and some other drivers from the big company I was talking about, this morning at the pit while we were waiting on the excavator.

They all reported very minor problems. Most of the problems they were beetching about were the re-gen, Def, and computer issues with the engines. Their older 2007 KW's autos all have between 340-350K on them.

 

Finally got to try this out and it worked beautifully. Great tip, thanks!