Any company drivers get an automatic transmission truck yet?

You will like it. In places like Dallas during the rush. Push a button, release clutch, add fuel and maybe touch your brakes now and then while sipping coffee and listening to mozart without the screams and clash of problems all around you.

Just don't like it too much. It will brick on you now and then if you don't shut down occasionally for 30 minutes or longer. (Software buffer fills up ergo blue screen crash interally. Tow call....) And states consider lack of manual transmission a liability.

Those of you running autos should learn manuals. It wont be long before you are treated as restricted second class truckers push button automatic.

 

I've heard the whole fleet will be phasing in auto's as trucks are replaced. We shall see.

I've driven an auto, in heavy traffic it's a very nice thing. But I've only driven one in Texas, so I'm unsure of overall performance.

 

We were a team, a husband wife one. For her convience I was issued a 2001 century with 20 miles on it that had a rockwell possibly a meritor auto with the paddle on the steering wheel column. At first I was thinking of quitting knowing we are bound away for the intermountain rockies to do battle with winter ice for the whole season...

Well... we ran the hell out of that truck in 10 months 220,000 miles. All the USA and some of Canada. It quit twice when we failed to shut off and the automatic bricked on us taking a tow truck twice back to FFE in Lancaster Tx. They were NOT happy because both times the load on our 5th wheel just cannot be delayed or late at all, we were trusted to get them through. They yelled at us to frigging stop and shut off a hour. That rarely happened the way we ran. So... if we turned in a solid 10 days running, it bricks. So we compromised. Go shut it off once a week have a dinner date with salad etc. for a hour. It's 50 miles lost you cannot get back at 63 mph. Never mind the 1450 miles every 30 hours or whatever it was....

And winter ice? WHOOO I gotta tell you that trans was very well matched to the detroit 500, every time that engine lugs down and I reach to shift it shifts. It's that perfect. Now the ice.

I had a convoy with me coming out of Knoxville west on 40 about 10 miles out I think. We approach a curve upgrade with a canyon between west and east bounds. There was shade across the curve where it tightens up and there the threat of ice. It was about a couple of inches of ice and snow mix. And still sleeting a little bit. Spouse was driving.

That tractor hit that shade patch at 25 and slipped like a fat lady into a proper tractor jack knife. I jumped on the dash in a crouch, grabbed the wheel and moved it 3 inches into the jackknife just so. I felt her tires grab and straighten out while yelling commands at my spouse to not move that right foot or do anything. FREEZE as she was. Leaving the auto to deal with whatever the engine was doing at that moment.

I watched my number two hit, slide recover the hard way, then TMC a number three flatbed rolled backwards losing his load into the median while attempting a last ditch application of forward power to keep straight on the way down backwards into the canyon, numbers 4 through 7 turned the entire area into a junk yard.

I lose the convoy. But number two stayed with me and we rested a while on top of that hill whatever it was on the side trying to relay to Knoxville behind us that westbound is absolutely CLOSED. A bad day.

But that auto... it was the farthest from our minds that day when she slipped and recovered. It's not a manual where you have to decide what you are going to do and do it.

 

As a matter of information, it was a 500 detroit, yokohama steers and bridgestone rubber drives. She turned in a average of 6.5 per gallon a high of 15 in Kansas east bound downgrade with good wind behind us. We estimated approximately 7500 hours on that detroit and around a 80,000 dollar fuel bill for the 10 months. Revenue is around a half million for the 10 months based on miles pay. It's a educated guess. If we owned that truck outright and ran together the way we did... that would been all of our money, not FFE lol. In addition 2001 quite possibly was the first if not a first batch of autos on the road for FFE that year. Im not sure.

 

That was the old original autos from years ago from people I have talked to who experienced them. The new ones are nothing like that. I've driven one almost 100,000 since December and nothing has gone wrong.

 

I heard from my GP DM that they're phasing in the autos. They have a "manual" option, for those of us that like to have more control, but as far as better or worse...I like my manual in the hills and mountains, but the auto can be a real treat when you're stuck in stop and go rush hour traffic.
The auto I had was a '15 Cascadia Evolution with the DD15 over at (I know, tease me later) CR England. It had a toggle to allow you to manually shift, and if you over-rev (like going down a grade,) it automatically engaged the jakes to slow you down to around 1200-1300RPM before letting off. It pulled pretty #### well for a Freightliner, but at a capped 62, you really don't get a chance to tackle a decent grade before you're downshifting from hell to breakfast to keep momentum up.
Keep an eye out, though. The autos are coming, and if you're on GP or another account that runs the International, they're droppong those, too, eventually.