Missing a Gear: Pulling the Hills of Western PA

Yes

 

That's crazy! I can understand why in terms of fuel mileage.

I was there from '09-'12 and drove several of the automatics, Ultra shift and Smart shift(one has a clutch and the other does not). Cool concept but I spent a TON of time sitting on the side of the road with bad ECM's and busted X/Y servos.

I ended up back in a regular old ten speed truck and never took shifting for granted again. Have they gotten any better? I seem to remember not being able to crawl while backing, it was all or nothing.

What about the TE's, are they training all on autos?

 

It is my understanding that trainers will not be getting autos until every manual truck is phased out. @gentleroger

I just left there a couple months ago, I had the DT12 transmission- as far as maintenance, I had nothing go bad on it during the time I had it. I did have a loaner truck that apparently had a bad ECM or something- when going down the road, all of the gauges would die, cruise would disengage, transmission would not shift automatically & I had to shift it manually. At least it still shifted! I never asked the mechanics what ended up being wrong with it.

Backing is ok- you have to tap the accelerator after shifting in reverse and it will enter a "creep mode"- it is usually a good speed but sometimes a bit too fast. In conditions with poor traction it's not good- it will exit that "creep mode" and stop backing as soon as wheelspin is detected. Annoying. Also, when heavy, the truck will sometimes hop, but I suspect that this was due to the clutch needing adjusting on my truck.

It is also my understanding that the newer trucks are being ordered with the optional modes locked out. In other words, it can only be left in Econ mode, the manual and performance modes are locked out. The econ mode is worthless when you're heavy in places like Western PA. It holds those higher gears way too long, causing you to lose speed going uphill. Before you know it, you're slowly creeping up that hill.

Overall, they are improving and this newer generation isn't bad. And that's coming from someone who prefers manual transmissions in cars. Being a student fresh out of CDL school, I wouldn't want to go directly into one- when taking the road test at the next company that has a manual-only fleet, I'd want to have some confidence in my shifting.

 

I refer a manual especially ice and snow, all the trucks I have owned had 15 and 18spds,,now for the 7 corvettes I have owned 4 have been automatics,,